Gender differences in cognitive outcome after cardiac arrest: A retrospective cohort study

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Recent studies have suggested gender disparities in neurologic outcome after cardiac arrest (CA). However, the relation between gender and cognitive outcome has been rarely examined. Here we investigated whether sex is associated with cognitive outcome after CA events.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted using data collected at our institution from January 2006 to May 2017. Patients were included if they had a documented CA and were able to participate in structured neuropsychological testing. Cognitive status was assessed at about 2.1 month after CA and included tests of attention as well as short and long-term memory. Gender was used as the main predictor of outcome and was studied in relation to age, depressive mood, therapeutic hypothermia (TH), and other potential confounders.

Results: Males were more likely to show favorable cognitive outcome in both univariate and multivariate analyses. Women were more likely to exhibit depressive mood. Patients who underwent TH (31% of the patients) did not show any gender differences in benefits from the treatment. Among males and females, no significant differences between age groups could be observed.

Conclusions: Male sex was associated with favorable cognitive outcome after CA which could not be attributed to baseline characteristics.

KEYWORDS:

• Cardiac arrest
• resuscitation
• gender
• cognitive outcome

Acknowledgments

We thank Christian von Thomsen and Dana Heinze for their assistance with this manuscript, Maik Porsche for assistance with access to the Helios data base, and Margret Bessler, Peter Calé, Dana Heinze, Maria Köhnke, Susanne Potter and Hartmut Neiden for performing the neuropsychological assessment.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interests.