Évaluation du pronostic neurologique dans les encéphalopathies postanoxiques

Predicting the outcome of a patient in postanoxic coma can be extremely difficult. From the prognosis depend fundamental issues like the question of withholding or withdrawing therapies. This raises the issue about the foundation on which the clinician can rely to consider that his patient has a poor prognosis. In the present article, we do not pretend to tell the reader how to obtain certainty about the prognosis in anoxic coma patients but rather to provide indices that, once combined, will help clinician to build his conviction about the poor prognosis. Inspired by a recent review of literature by Wijdicks and al., we discuss 10 factors that denounce unfavorable outcome for the patient in postanoxic coma. We think that some of these prognosis indicators may help health care professionals in their decision-making regarding the management of these challenging patients.