De-Ritis Ratio Is Associated with Mortality After Cardiac Arrest

Introduction: The aim of our study was to explore the associations of the aspartate transaminase/alanine transaminase (De-Ritis) ratio with outcomes after cardiac arrest (CA).

Methods: This retrospective study included 374 consecutive adult cardiac arrest patients. Information on the study population was obtained from the Dryad Digital Repository. Patients were divided into tertiles based on their De-Ritis ratio. The logistic regression hazard analysis was used to assess the independent relationship between the De-Ritis ratio and mortality. The Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test were used to estimate the survival of different groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was utilized to compare the prognostic ability of biomarkers. A model combining the De-Ritis ratio was established, and its performance was evaluated using the Akaike information criterion (AIC).

Results: Of the 374 patients who were included in the study, 194 patients (51.9%) died in the intensive care unit (ICU), 213 patients (57.0%) died during hospitalization, and 226 patients (60.4%) had an unfavorable neurologic outcome. Logistic regression analysis including potentially confounding factors showed that the De-Ritis ratio was independently associated with mortality, yielding a more than onefold risk of ICU mortality (OR 1.455; 95% CI 1.088-1.946; = 0.011) and hospital mortality (OR 1.378; 95% CI 1.031-1.842; = 0.030). Discriminatory performance assessed by ROC curves showed an area under the curve of 0.611 (95% CI 0.553-0.668) for ICU mortality and 0.625 (0.567-0.682) for hospital mortality. Further, the likelihood ratio test (LRT) analysis showed that the model combining the De-Ritis ratio had a smaller AIC and higher likelihood ratio score than the model without the De-Ritis ratio. The Kaplan-Meier curves showed that the CA patients in the De-Ritis ratio tertile 3 group clearly had a significantly higher incidence of ICU mortality (log - rank = 0.007).

Conclusion: An elevated De-Ritis ratio on admission was significantly associated with ICU mortality and hospital mortality after CA. Assessment of the De-Ritis ratio might help identify groups at high risk for mortality.