Occurrence and timing of withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in traumatic brain injury patients : a CENTER-TBI study

Abstract

Background

In patients with severe brain injury, withdrawal of life-sustaining measures (WLSM) is common in intensive care units (ICU). WLSM constitutes a dilemma: instituting WLSM too early could result in death despite the possibility of an acceptable functional outcome, whereas delaying WLSM could unnecessarily burden patients, families, clinicians, and hospital resources. We aimed to describe the occurrence and timing of WLSM, and factors associated with timing of WLSM in European ICUs in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Methods

The CENTER-TBI Study is a prospective multi-center cohort study. For the current study, patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) admitted to the ICU and aged 16 or older were included. Occurrence and timing of WLSM were documented. For the analyses, we dichotomized timing of WLSM in early (< 72 h after injury) versus later (≥ 72 h after injury) based on recent guideline recommendations. We assessed factors associated with initiating WLSM early versus later, including geographic region, center, patient, injury, and treatment characteristics with univariable and multivariable (mixed effects) logistic regression.

Results

A total of 2022 patients aged 16 or older were admitted to the ICU. ICU mortality was 13% (n = 267). Of these, 229 (86%) patients died after WLSM, and were included in the analyses. The occurrence of WLSM varied between regions ranging from 0% in Eastern Europe to 96% in Northern Europe. In 51% of the patients, WLSM was early. Patients in the early WLSM group had a lower maximum therapy intensity level (TIL) score than patients in the later WLSM group (median of 5 versus 10) The strongest independent variables associated with early WLSM were one unreactive pupil (odds ratio (OR) 4.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.3–12.4) or two unreactive pupils (OR 5.8, CI 2.6–13.1) compared to two reactive pupils, and an Injury Severity Score (ISS) if over 41 (OR per point above 41 = 1.1, CI 1.0–1.1). Timing of WLSM was not significantly associated with region or center.

Conclusion

WLSM occurs early in half of the patients, mostly in patients with severe TBI affecting brainstem reflexes who were severely injured. We found no regional or center influences in timing of WLSM. Whether WLSM is always appropriate or may contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy requires further research and argues for reluctance to institute WLSM early in case of any doubt on prognosis.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	van Veen, E van der Jagt, M Citerio, G Stocchetti, N Gommers, D Burdorf, A Menon, DK Maas, AIR Kompanje, EJO Lingsma, HF Åkerlund, C Amrein, K Andelic, N Andreassen, L Anke, A Antoni, A Audibert, G Azouvi, P Azzolini, ML Bartels, R Barzó, P Beauvais, R Beer, R Bellander, B-M Belli, A Benali, H Berardino, M Beretta, L Blaabjerg, M Bragge, P Brazinova, A Brinck, V Brooker, J Brorsson, C Buki, A Bullinger, M Cabeleira, M Caccioppola, A Calappi, E Calvi, MR Cameron, P Lozano, GC Carbonara, M Cavallo, S Chevallard, G Chieregato, A Citerio, G Clusmann, H Coburn, M Coles, J Cooper, JD Correia, M Čović, A Curry, N Czeiter, E Czosnyka, M Fizelier, CD Dark, P Dawes, H De Keyser, V Degos, V Corte, FD den Boogert, H Depreitere, B Đilvesi, Đ Dixit, A Donoghue, E Dreier, J Dulière, GL Ercole, A Esser, P Ezer, E Fabricius, M Feigin, VL Foks, K Frisvold, S Furmanov, A Gagliardo, P Galanaud, D Gantner, D Gao, G George, P Ghuysen, A Giga, L Glocker, B Golubovic, J Gomez, PA Gratz, J Gravesteijn, B Grossi, F Gruen, RL Gupta, D Haagsma, JA Haitsma, I Helbok, R Helseth, E Horton, L Huijben, J Hutchinson, PJ Jacobs, B Jankowski, S Jarrett, M Jiang, JY Johnson, F Jones, K Karan, M Kolias, AG Kompanje, E Kondziella, D Kornaropoulos, E Koskinen, LO Kovács, N Kowark, A Lagares, A Lanyon, L Laureys, S Lecky, F https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6806-0921 Ledoux, D Lefering, R Legrand, V Lejeune, A Levi, L Lightfoot, R Lingsma, H Maas, AIR Castaño, AML Maegele, M Majdan, M Manara, A Manley, G Martino, C Maréchal, H Mattern, J McMahon, C Melegh, B Menon, D Menovsky, T Mikolic, A Misset, B Muraleedharan, V Murray, L Negru, A Nelson, D Newcombe, V Nieboer, D Nyirádi, J Olubukola, O Oresic, M Ortolano, F Palotie, A Parizel, PM Payen, JF Perera, N Perlbarg, V Persona, P Peul, W Piippo-Karjalainen, A Pirinen, M Pisica, D Ples, H Polinder, S Pomposo, I Posti, JP Puybasset, L Radoi, A Ragauskas, A Raj, R Rambadagalla, M Helmrich, IR Rhodes, J Richardson, S Richter, S Ripatti, S Rocka, S Roe, C Roise, O Rosand, J Rosenfeld, JV Rosenlund, C Rosenthal, G Rossaint, R Rossi, S Rueckert, D Rusnák, M Sahuquillo, J Sakowitz, O Porras, RS Sandor, J Schäfer, N Schmidt, S Schoechl, H Schoonman, G Schou, RF Schwendenwein, E Sewalt, C Skandsen, T Smielewski, P Sorinola, A Stamatakis, E Stanworth, S Stevens, R Stewart, W Steyerberg, EW Stocchetti, N Sundström, N Takala, R Tamás, V Tamosuitis, T Taylo, MS Ao, BT Tenovuo, O Theadom, A Thomas, M Tibboel, D Timmers, M Tolias, C Trapani, T Tudora, CM Unterberg, A Vajkoczy, P Vallance, S Valeinis, E Vámos, Z van der Jagt, M Van der Steen, G van der Naalt, J van Dijck, JTJM van Essen, TA Van Hecke, W van Heugten, C Van Praag, D van Veen, E Vyvere, TV van Wijk, RPJ Vargiolu, A Vega, E Velt, K Verheyden, J Vespa, PM Vik, A Vilcinis, R Volovici, V von Steinbüchel, N Voormolen, D Vulekovic, P Wang, KKW Wiegers, E Williams, G Wilson, L Winzeck, S Wolf, S Yang, Z Ylén, P Younsi, A Zeiler, FA Zelinkova, V Ziverte, A Zoerle, T
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Keywords:	Traumatic brain injury; Critical care; Intensive care unit; WLSM
Dates:	Published: October 2021 Published (online): 5 August 2021 Accepted: 14 July 2021
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number European Commission - FP6/FP7 HEALTH-F2-2013-602150
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	14 Jan 2022 07:52
Last Modified:	14 Jan 2022 07:52
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Springer Nature
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1007/s00134-021-06484-1
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:182532

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Occurrence and timing of withdrawal of life-sustaining measures in traumatic brain injury patients : a CENTER-TBI study

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