Remifentanil for Sedation of Children With Traumatic Brain Injury.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether remifentanil would provide adequate sedation while allowing frequent and reproducible neurologic assessments in children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with traumatic brain injury (TBI) during mechanical ventilation.

DESIGN: Retrospective review.

SETTING: Tertiary care PICU.

PATIENTS: Thirty-eight patients over a 30-month period.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Median age was 9 years (interquartile range [IQR] 2.25-12 years). The median Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) was 9 (IQR: 8-10). All patients were tracheally intubated and receiving mechanical ventilation. A continuous infusion of remifentanil was started at 0.1 μg/kg/min, and bolus doses of 0.25 to 1 μg/kg were administered every 3 to 5 minutes as needed to reach the desired sedation level. Infusions were stopped at least hourly to perform neurologic examinations. The median remifentanil dose was 0.25 μg/kg/min with an IQR of 0.1 and 0.6 μg/kg/min. The maximum dose for any patient in the cohort was 2 μg/kg/min. Median duration of therapy with remifentanil was 20 hours (IQR: 8-44 hours). Adequate sedation was achieved with sedation scores (State Behavioral Scale) meeting target levels with a median value of 100% of the time (IQR: 79%-100%). Neurologic examinations were able to be performed within a median of 9 minutes (IQR: 5-14 minutes) of pausing the infusion. No serious safety events occurred. In 68% of the patients, neurologic examinations remained reassuring during remifentanil infusion, and patients were extubated. The remaining patients were transitioned to traditional sedative agents for long-term management of their traumatic injuries once the neurologic status was deemed stable.

CONCLUSION: This data suggest that remifentanil is a suitable sedative agent for use in children with TBI. It provides a rapid onset of sedation with recovery that permits reliable and reproducible clinical examination.