VIGAB-BIOSTAT: Neuronal Injury Panel Substudy

Post anoxic status epilepticus (PASE) is the development of intractable seizures in the post-cardiac arrest period once return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) has been achieved. Historically, this condition has resulted in nearly 100% mortality, and the subset of patients diagnosed with PASE has been excluded from previous therapeutic trials in status epilepticus. The administration of vigabatrin, a GABA-ergic medication that blocks GABA catabolism, is being investigated as an adjunctive therapy to improve neurologic outcomes in this patient population through the VIGAB-STAT program at the University of Florida.

Neuroprognostication in cardiac arrest patients remains imprecise. Outcomes following cardiac arrest depend on a multitude of factors, from details of cardiac arrest (e.g., downtime and rhythm on arrest) to other factors that influence secondary brain injury-all of which are hard to ascertain from objective clinical and laboratory data. Neuronal and astroglial protein assays have been investigated in this patient population as a novel method of quantifying the degree of neuronal injury and may serve as an objective informant of ongoing secondary brain injury, thus being a helpful neuroprognostic tool. This assay can also demonstrate objectively if a neuroprotectant therapy mitigates secondary brain injury and decreases the overall hypoxic-brain injury burden. However, normative data on these assays on post-cardiac arrest patients suffering PASE are lacking.