Comparison of four near-infrared spectroscopy devices shows that they are only suitable for monitoring cerebral oxygenation trends in preterm infants.
OBJECTIVE
Measuring cerebral oxygenation using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has taken on an increasingly important role in the field of neonatology. Several companies have already developed commercial devices, and more publications are reporting absolute boundary values or percentiles for neonates. We compared four commercially used devices to discover whether they provided consistent results in the same patients.


METHODS
We recruited nine preterm infants and tested them for 2 h, using sensors from two different devices. The measurements were carried out six times on each child, so that all four devices were compared with each other. A total of 54 measurements were conducted. The following devices were compared: the NIRO 200 (Hamamatsu Photonics K.K), the INVOS 5100c (Somanetics), the Fore-Sight (CAS Med.) and the SenSmart X-100 (NONIN).


RESULTS
The cerebral tissue oxygenation data yielded by the individual devices differed significantly from each other, ranging from a minimum difference of 2.93% to a maximum difference of 12.66%.


CONCLUSIONS
The commercially available NIRS devices showed highly significant differences in local cerebral tissue oxygenation levels, to the extent that the industry cannot agree on uniform and reproducible standards. Therefore, NIRS should only be used for trend measurements in preterm infants.
Division for Neonatology, University Hospital for Pediatrics, Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg, Austria.
Anna
A
Schneider
Bernd
B
Minnich
Edda
E
Hofstätter
Christof
C
Weisser
Erna
E
Hattinger-Jürgenssen
Martin
M
Wald
D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007234:Infant, Premature; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000378:metabolism*; D019265:Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / Q000295:instrumentation*
D010100:Oxygen
Brain monitoring; Extraction coefficient; Near-infrared spectroscopy; Preterm infants; Regional oxygen saturation