Auditory event-related potentials, bispectral index, and entropy for the discrimination of different levels of sedation in intensive care unit patients.
BACKGROUND
Sedation protocols, including the use of sedation scales and regular sedation stops, help to reduce the length of mechanical ventilation and intensive care unit stay. Because clinical assessment of depth of sedation is labor-intensive, performed only intermittently, and interferes with sedation and sleep, processed electrophysiological signals from the brain have gained interest as surrogates. We hypothesized that auditory event-related potentials (ERPs), Bispectral Index (BIS), and Entropy can discriminate among clinically relevant sedation levels.


METHODS
We studied 10 patients after elective thoracic or abdominal surgery with general anesthesia. Electroencephalogram, BIS, state entropy (SE), response entropy (RE), and ERPs were recorded immediately after surgery in the intensive care unit at Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale (RASS) scores of -5 (very deep sedation), -4 (deep sedation), -3 to -1 (moderate sedation), and 0 (awake) during decreasing target-controlled sedation with propofol and remifentanil. Reference measurements for baseline levels were performed before or several days after the operation.


RESULTS
At baseline, RASS -5, RASS -4, RASS -3 to -1, and RASS 0, BIS was 94 [4] (median, IQR), 47 [15], 68 [9], 75 [10], and 88 [6]; SE was 87 [3], 46 [10], 60 [22], 74 [21], and 87 [5]; and RE was 97 [4], 48 [9], 71 [25], 81 [18], and 96 [3], respectively (all P < 0.05, Friedman Test). Both BIS and Entropy had high variabilities. When ERP N100 amplitudes were considered alone, ERPs did not differ significantly among sedation levels. Nevertheless, discriminant ERP analysis including two parameters of principal component analysis revealed a prediction probability PK value of 0.89 for differentiating deep sedation, moderate sedation, and awake state. The corresponding PK for RE, SE, and BIS was 0.88, 0.89, and 0.85, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Neither ERPs nor BIS or Entropy can replace clinical sedation assessment with standard scoring systems. Discrimination among very deep, deep to moderate, and no sedation after general anesthesia can be provided by ERPs and processed electroencephalograms, with similar P(K)s. The high inter- and intraindividual variability of Entropy and BIS precludes defining a target range of values to predict the sedation level in critically ill patients using these parameters. The variability of ERPs is unknown.
Haenggi
Matthias
M
Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Ypparila-Wolters
Heidi
H
Buerki
Sarah
S
Schlauri
Rebekka
R
Korhonen
Ilkka
I
Takala
Jukka
J
Jakob
Stephan M
SM
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000379:methods*; D016292:Procedural Sedation / Q000379:methods; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods; D019277:Entropy; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008875:Middle Aged; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative / Q000379:methods; D010865:Pilot Projects; D010880:Piperidines / Q000494:pharmacology; D015742:Propofol / Q000494:pharmacology; D000077208:Remifentanil
D010880:Piperidines; D000077208:Remifentanil; D015742:Propofol