AIM Regional variation in incidence and survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) may be caused by many factors including differences in definitions and reporting. We examined regional differences in Denmark. METHODS From the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry we identified adult OHCA patients between 2009-2014 of presumed cardiac cause. Patients were grouped according to the five administrative/geographical regions of Denmark and survival was examined based on all arrest-cases (30-day survival percentage) and number of survivors per 100,000 inhabitants. RESULTS We included 12,902 OHCAs of which 1550 (12.0 %) were alive 30 days after OHCA. No regional differences were observed in age, sex or comorbidities.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/Gefitinib.html  Incidence of OHCA ranged from 32.9 to 42.4 per 100,000 inhabitants; 30-day survival percentages ranged from 8.5% to 13.8% and number of survivors per 100,000 inhabitants ranged from 3.5 to 5.9, across the regions. In one of the regions car-manned pre-hospital physicians were discontinued from 2011. Here, the incidence of OHCA per 100,000 inhabitants increased markedly from 37.1 in 2011 to 52.2 in 2014 and 30-day survival percentage decreased from 10.9 % in 2011 to 7.5 % in 2014; while the number of survivors per 100,000 inhabitants stagnated from 4.0 in 2011 to 3.9 in 2014. In comparison, survival increased in the other four regions. CONCLUSION Differences in incidence and 30-day survival after OHCA were observed between the five regions of Denmark. Comparisons of survival should not only be based on survival percentages, but also on number of survivors of the background population as inclusion bias can influence survival outcomes. PURPOSE To assess the association between the duration of mechanical ventilation during post resuscitation care and 30-day survival after cardiac arrest. METHODS We conducted a retrospective observational study using data from two national registries. Comatose cardiac arrest patients admitted to general intensive care in Swedish hospitals between 2011 and 2016 were eligible. Based on the median duration of mechanical ventilation for patients who did not survive to hospital discharge, used as a proxy for the endurance of post resuscitation care, the hospitals were divided into four ordered groups for which association with 30-day survival was analyzed. RESULTS In total, 5.113 patients in 56 hospitals were included. Median duration of mechanical ventilation for patients who did not survive to hospital discharge ranged from 17 h in hospital group 1-51 hours in hospital group 4. After adjustment for baseline characteristics, 30-day survival in the entire cohort was positively and independently associated with ordered hospital group (adjusted odds ratio (95%CI); 1.12 (1.02,1.23); p = 0.02). Thus, hospitals with a longer duration of mechanical ventilation among non-survivors had better survival rate among patients admitted to ICU after a cardiac arrest. However, in a secondary analysis restricted to patients with length of stay in the intensive care unit ≥ 48 h, there was no significant association between 30-day survival and ordered hospital group. CONCLUSION A tendency for longer duration of post resuscitation care in the ICU was associated with higher 30-day survival in comatose patients admitted to intensive care after cardiac arrest. AIM A standardised rapid response system (RRS), called the "Between-the-Flags" (BTF) program, was implemented across a large health jurisdiction in Australia in 2010. The impact of RRS on emergency surgical admissions is unknown. METHODS We linked the NSW Admitted Patient Data Collection (APDC) and the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. We used a propensity score-based inverse-probability-weighting adjustment to estimated average treatment effects among treated subjects (prior-RRS hospitals vs prior-non-RRS hospitals) before the BTF implementation (2007-2008) and after (2010-2013). RESULTS Before BTF, prior-RRS hospitals had a lower rate of in hospital cardiopulmonary arrests (IHCA) (4.7 vs 7.8 per 1000 admissions, P  less then  0.001), a lower rate of IHCA related deaths (3.0 vs 4.4 per 1000 admissions, P = 0.03) compared with patients in prior-non-RRS hospitals. There were no significant differences in overall in-hospital mortality and 30-day mortality between the two cohorts. After BTF, there were no significant differences for IHCA (4.8 vs 5.5 per 1000 admissions, P = 0.081) and related death rates (2.4 vs 2.3 per 1000 admissions, P = 0.678) between the two cohorts. Hospital mortality, 30-day mortality improved across both prior-RRS and prior-non-RRS hospitals following the BTF implementation. CONCLUSION BTF program was associated with a significant reduction in IHCA and IHCA deaths for emergency surgical patients in prior-non-RRS hospitals but not in the prior-RRS hospitals. The overall hospital and 30-day mortality improved in both cohorts after BTF. AIM We evaluated serum tau protein as biomarker for poor neurological outcome over an extended observation period in patients after successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) treated with mild therapeutic hypothermia (MTH) or normothermia (NT). METHODS This is a retrospective analysis of a prospective observational study including 132 patients after successful CPR. Serum tau was determined in 24 h intervals for up to 168 h after CPR. Patients were treated with MTH targeting a temperature of 33 °C for 24 h or NT according to current guidelines. Neurological outcome was assessed with the Cerebral Performance Categories Scale (CPC) at hospital discharge. RESULTS Forty-three percent of the patients were treated with MTH. Serial serum tau levels (pg/ml) showed a peak between 72-96 h after CPR (159 (IQR 27-625). Patients with poor neurological outcome (CPC 3-5) at hospital discharge (n = 68) had significantly higher serum tau levels compared to patients with good neurological outcome at 0-24 h (164 (48-946) vs. 69 (12-224); p = 0.009), at 24-48 h (414 (124-1049) vs. 74 (0-215); p  less then  0.001), at 48-72 h (456 (94-1225) vs. 69 (0-215); p  less then  0.001) and at 72-96 h (691 (197-1173) vs. 73 (0-170); p  less then  0.001). At 72-96 h the AUC to predict poor neurological outcome was 0.848 (95% CI 0.737-0.959). Serum tau levels were not significantly different between patients with MTH and NT in multivariate analysis after adjusting for clinical relevant covariates. CONCLUSION Serum tau showed highest values and the best prognostic discrimination of poor neurological outcome at 72-96 h after CPR. Prolonged elevation may indicate ongoing axonal damage in patients with hypoxic encephalopathy. V.