Women receive less targeted temperature management than men following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest due to early care limitations

Abstract Background Women experience worse neurological outcomes following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). It is unknown whether sex disparities exist in the use of targeted temperature management (TTM), a standard of care treatment to improve neurological outcomes. Methods We performed a retrospective study of prospectively collected patients who survived to hospital admission following OHCA from the Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival from 2013 through 2019. We compared receipt of TTM by sex in a mixed-effects model adjusted for patient, arrest, neighborhood, and hospital factors, with the admitting hospital modeled as a random intercept. Results Among 123,419 patients, women had lower rates of shockable rhythms (24.4 % vs. 39.2%, P Conclusions We found that women received less TTM than men, likely due to early care limitations and a preponderance of non-shockable rhythms.