Estimating the False Positive Rate of Absent Somatosensory Evoked Potentials in Cardiac Arrest Prognostication

Objective: Absence of short-latency cortical median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (“absent SSEPs”) is considered a nearly perfect predictor of poor outcome after cardiac arrest. However, reports of good outcomes despite absent SSEPs and high rates of withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies (WLST) have raised concerns that estimates of the prognostic value of absent SSEPs may be biased by self-fulfilling prophecies. We aimed to develop an unbiased estimate of the false positive rate (FPR) of absent SSEPs as a predictor of poor outcome after cardiac arrest.