Michael S Avidan, Lini Zhang, Beth A Burnside, Kevin J Finkel, Adam C Searleman, Jacqueline A Selvidge, Leif Saager, Michelle S Turner, Srikar Rao, Michael Bottros, Charles Hantler, Eric Jacobsohn, Alex S Evers
BACKGROUND: Awareness during anesthesia is a serious complication with potential long-term psychological consequences. Use of the bispectral index (BIS), developed from a processed electroencephalogram, has been reported to decrease the incidence of anesthesia awareness when the BIS value is maintained below 60. In this trial, we sought to determine whether a BIS-based protocol is better than a protocol based on a measurement of end-tidal anesthetic gas (ETAG) for decreasing anesthesia awareness in patients at high risk for this complication...
March 13, 2008: New England Journal of Medicine