PHYSICIANS ADOPT BRAIN MONITORING POLICY

The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) House of Delegates has approved a practice advisory for how physicians can address intraoperative awareness, including support for a device that reduces this condition.

ASA developed the steps that doctors should take when patients suffer intraoperative awareness, a condition in which a patient regains consciousness during surgery due to a lack of sufficient anesthesia. The advisory states that patients should be evaluated for awareness risk factors, at-risk patients should be informed and the amount of anesthetic should be monitored throughout surgery, and doctors should decide on a case-by-case basis whether to use brain function monitoring devices.

The advisory provided documentation that Aspect Medical System's Bispectral Index (BIS) technology is the only device that reduces the incidence of awareness. According to the advisory, and a related study published in The Lancet in May 2004, BIS monitoring reduced the risk of awareness with recall by 82 percent.