title: Same-patient reproducibility of state entropy: a comparison of simultaneous bilateral measurements during general anesthesia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  State Entropy (SE) is an index of anesthetic depth similar to Bispectral Index (BIS). Both indices use a single-channel electroencephalogram, recorded from a unilaterally applied electrode on the forehead, as their input. Intrapatient reproducibility of BIS was questioned in a recent study in which simultaneous measurements from two electrodes applied to the same patient showed conflicting anesthetic depths. Our purpose was to determine whether SE results are similarly reproducible, even though their computation uses a different algorithm than BIS. In this study, we investigated the reproducibility of SE measurements simultaneously obtained from bilaterally applied electrodes in the same patient.
  
  
  METHODS
  Entropy electrodes were applied bilaterally on 21 patients under general inhaled anesthesia. Simultaneous SE measurements from both electrodes were recorded every 10 s from each patient. Data were analyzed with Bland-Altman statistics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We obtained 14,379 pairs of SE measurements. Four percent of the individual measurements suggested conflicting anesthetic depth along with a numeric difference more than 10 points. Bias was not clinically significant (-0.3). Ninety-five percent limits of agreement were -11.7 and +11.6.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  SE showed a clinically significant degree of disagreement when probes were applied on both sides of the forehead in the same patient. Bland-Altman statistics showed better same-patient reproducibility in SE than did a similar study on BIS. Nevertheless, 4% of the simultaneously measured pairs of SE suggested different anesthetic depths and differed by more than 10 points. Caution is advised when using SE as a clinical index of anesthetic depth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA. msozcan@gmail.com
authors.forename: Mehmet S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Ozcan
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cure
authors.forename: J Randal
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Hine
authors.forename: Pamela R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000768:Anesthesia, General; D004566:Electrodes; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019277:Entropy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D015203:Reproducibility of Results