Figure 1. Screened, Excluded, and Included Patients in the Study of Targeted Temperature Management.

OHCA indicates out-of-hospital cardiac arrest; ICU, intensive care unit; ROSC, return of spontaneous circulation.

^aReasons for not meeting inclusion (eligibility) criteria were as follows: not cardiac OHCA (n=75), age (n=53), Glasgow Coma Scale score >8 (n=49), and no stable ROSC (n=14).

^bExclusion criteria met were as follows: estimated time from collapse to ROSC >60 min (n=40), cardiac arrest with presumed noncardiac cause (eg, trauma, aorta dissection, intracerebral disease, massive bleeding, hanging, or hypoxemia) (n=63), in-hospital cardiac arrest (n=6), terminal disease or do-not-resuscitate order (n=15), severe coagulopathy (anticoagulant therapy, including thrombolysis, was not an exclusion criteria) (n=8), unwitnessed OHCA with asystole as first rhythm (n=21), time from cardiac arrest to initiation of cooling >240 min (n=19), neurologic disease with cognitive impairment (n=8), persistent cardiogenic shock, systolic blood pressure <80 mm Hg despite vasoactive treatment, or aortic balloon pump intervention (n=46), suspected or confirmed acute intracerebral bleeding (n=9), suspected or confirmed acute stroke (n=6), and acute coronary artery bypass surgery (n=1).

^cOther reasons for exclusion were as follows: patient died before enrollment (n=10), other interventional study precluding co-enrollment (n=5), patients transferred to other ICU because of bed availability (n=5), and patient not native to country of treatment, rendering follow-up difficult or impossible (n=3).

^dThe patient lost to follow-up was known to be alive and was included in the survival analyses, but could not be included in the primary analyses due to lack of primary outcome data.