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,

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Departments of *Anesthesiology,
Pediatrics, and
||Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; and
Divisions of
Pediatric Cardiovascular Anesthesiology and
¶Congenital Heart Surgery, Texas Childrens Hospital, Houston, Texas
Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dean B. Andropoulos, MD, 6621 Fannin, WT 19345H, Houston, TX 77030. Address e-mail to dra{at}bcm.tmc.edu
| Abstract |
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IMPLICATIONS: Left-sided cerebral hemisphere oxygen saturation, measured with near-infrared spectroscopy, was less than right-sided cerebral oxygen saturation during regional low-flow cerebral perfusion used for neonatal aortic arch reconstruction.
| Introduction |
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Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has been used to measure cerebral oxygenation during RLFP and as a guide to determine adequate flow during cardiopulmonary bypass (6). Although NIRS has successfully demonstrated adequate oxygen delivery to the right cerebral hemisphere, the adequacy of blood flow to the left cerebral hemisphere has been questioned (6), because cerebral blood flow occurs through the right carotid and vertebral arteries and blood must traverse the circle of Willis to reach the left hemisphere.
The purpose of this study was to compare cerebral oxygenation in both cerebral hemispheres by using NIRS during neonatal aortic arch reconstruction using RLFP to determine whether bilateral monitoring is necessary. Our hypothesis was that both hemispheres have equivalent oxygen delivery with this technique and, thus, that bilateral cerebral oxygen saturation values would correlate closely, rendering bilateral monitoring unnecessary.
| Methods |
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Cerebral physiologic monitoring included NIRS (INVOS 5100; Somanetics Corp., Troy MI) to measure a regional cerebral oxygen saturation index (rSO2i). This method uses near-infrared light at 730- and 810-nm wavelengths to measure the absorption spectra of the total hemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin in the frontal cerebral cortex (7). One light-emitting diode and 2 detectors, spaced 3 and 4 cm from the light-emitting diode, are used. The 3-cm detector is assumed to measure primarily the light passing through shallow structures such as the skull, skin, and soft tissues. The 4-cm detector is assumed to measure light passing through both the shallow structures and a deeper banana-shaped path in the frontal cerebral cortex. A subtraction algorithm is used to correct for the signal from the extracranial tissues, and a percentage rSO2i is displayed; this is derived as the ratio of oxyhemoglobin to total hemoglobin x 100 (8). The monitor is self-calibrating before measurement begins, and if signal strength is inadequate, a "poor signal quality" error message is displayed. Bilateral sensors were applied to the forehead just to the right and left of the midline.
Transcranial Doppler (TCD) pulsed-wave ultrasound (EME Companion; Nicolet Biomedical, Madison, WI) of the right middle cerebral artery was used to measure cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV). A 2-MHz probe was placed over the right temporal area, and the depth of sample volume and angle of insonation were adjusted until a biphasic CBFV signal was obtained, signifying sampling at the bifurcation of the middle and anterior cerebral arteries (9). Right-sided CBFV was monitored continuously throughout the surgery. A left-sided TCD probe was also placed, and left CBFV was assessed before, during, and after RLFP (see below) during the bypass period to ensure adequate blood flow to the left side.
For all patients, bypass was initiated through an 8F or 10F aortic cannula inserted into the distal end of a 3- or 3.5-mm PTFE graft, with the proximal end anastomosed into the distal right innominate artery. The right innominate artery was occluded during the anastomosis of the PTFE graft, potentially causing right-sided cerebral ischemia, and the TCD was used to monitor CBFV during this procedure.
Bypass was instituted at a flow of 150200 mL · kg1· min1. Phenoxybenzamine 0.25 mg/kg was administered to all Norwood patients on initiation of bypass. Phenoxybenzamine 0.251 mg/kg or phentolamine 0.31 mg/kg was administered to all other patients during bypass to achieve a mean arterial blood pressure of 3040 mm Hg at a minimum flow of 150 mL · kg1 · min1 throughout the bypass. Extracorporeal cooling to a nasopharyngeal temperature of 18°C was achieved over no less than 20 min. The target hematocrit was 25%30% during the period of hypothermia. A pH-stat blood gas strategy was used during all phases of the bypass period. RLFP was instituted by snaring the base of the right innominate, left common carotid, and left subclavian arteries, along with the descending thoracic aorta distal to the coarctation; perfusion was then initiated via the PTFE graft to the right innominate artery throughout the period of aortic reconstruction. Bypass flow was adjusted as described below. DHCA was used only for brief periods for atrial septectomy or changing the aortic cannula from the PTFE graft to the neoaorta in Norwood patients. Bypass flow during RLFP was adjusted to match CBFV to within ±10% of the baseline values measured during full-flow hypothermic bypass at 18°C, as previously described (10).
Bilateral rSO2i was recorded by the software of the INVOS 5100 in 1-min intervals throughout the entire case and was saved to computer disk after the case for further analysis. Data collection was divided into 5 periods: 1) before bypass (from just after the induction of anesthesia to the initiation of bypass), 2) on bypass before RLFP, 3) during RLFP, 4) on bypass after RLFP, and 5) after bypass (from termination of bypass until leaving the operating room). Bypass data reported in Table 1 were collected after cooling to 18°C at 3 time periods: just before RLFP during full-flow bypass, during RLFP, and just after RLFP on full-flow bypass through the reconstructed aorta.
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Our primary outcome variable was the mean difference in all rSO2i values between cerebral hemispheres during RLFP. We chose a mean difference of 10% (in absolute rSO2i values; e.g., rSO2i of 50% versus 60% is a 10% difference) as clinically significant on the basis of NIRS data using the INVOS system in 2 clinical studies that demonstrated a more frequent incidence of acute neurologic change with a relative change of 20% in baseline rSO2i (11,12). An absolute change of 10% at the rSO2i ranges in our patients corresponds to the
20% relative change seen in these studies. We chose a 10% absolute difference as clinically relevant because, in our experience, the clinician would want to know and possibly treat at this level of decreased rSO2i. On the basis of our previous study of RLFP using an identical protocol, in which the right-sided rSO2i in 34 patients was 88% ± 8% during RLFP (10), we calculated that a sample size of 12 patients was necessary to detect a difference of 10% between cerebral hemispheres with a power of 80% and an
of 0.05. We chose to study 20 patients to account for the possibility of increased variability of rSO2i measurements when both cerebral hemispheres were monitored.
| Results |
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10% for at least 3 min, always with the left-sided rSO2i less than the right. The largest single difference was one patient who exhibited a 5-min period of right-sided rSO2i of 92%94% and left-sided rSO2I of 60%64%. This left-sided rSO2i value of 60% represents the lowest value recorded during RLFP for the entire study in all patients. In all patients, rSO2i values on both sides during RLFP were higher than the preincision values observed during periods of stable hemodynamics. Two patients underwent some DHCA during the RLFP period, accounting for the few individual low rSO2i values displayed in Figure 1. In the post-RLFP period, correlation improved to 0.730, bias to +1.7%, and precision to 7.1%. After bypass there was once again a strong correlation between values (r = 0.925), but bias was still +3.6%, with a precision of 4.7%. Figure 2 displays the individual plots of two patients rSO2i versus time: one with strong correlation and agreement between cerebral hemispheres during RLFP and one with poor correlation and agreement.
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25% lower, and three patients were
25% above baseline values. | Discussion |
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10%, always less on the left side. Thus, our data suggest that bilateral monitoring of rSO2i is useful to detect left hemisphere desaturation in these patients during neonatal aortic arch reconstruction using RLFP. Detecting lower rSO2i on the left side allows clinicians to make adjustments that increase rSO2i, thereby allowing for a greater margin of safety. Maneuvers that may increase low rSO2i include increasing the bypass flow rate, increasing PaCO2, increasing hemoglobin, and decreasing the patients temperature (12). Without left-sided monitoring, lower rSO2i in the left cerebral hemisphere is undetected. Previous reports have demonstrated the utility of bilateral NIRS monitoring in adult patients when perfusion to the brain occurs through only one carotid artery. In a study of 100 patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy with regional anesthesia, Samra et al. (11) demonstrated that carotid occlusion decreased rSO2i more in patients who exhibited neurologic symptoms (from a mean of 63% to 51% versus 66% to 61% in those exhibiting no symptoms). A relative decrease in rSO2i of <20% with carotid clamping had a high negative predictive value of 97.4%. That study demonstrated a high degree of individual patient variability with this monitoring technology. Janelle et al. (13) reported a case of bilateral NIRS monitoring during emergency repair of a DeBakey Type I aortic dissection. An abrupt decrease in right rSO2i from 65% to <20% allowed recognition of an aortic dissection extending to the right common carotid artery during hypothermic bypass, requiring a change in the perfusion and operative strategy to immediately address the carotid dissection.
Decreased rSO2i on the left side during RLFP has been noted by other investigators. Hofer et al. (14) studied the effects on rSO2i of varying the RLFP flow from 10 to 30 mL · kg1 · min1 and found lower left-sided rSO2i values (mean, 6%8% lower). These authors used lower RLFP flow rates compared with our average flow rate (63 mL · kg1 · min1). Their rSO2i values were lower (66%78% on the right side) than those in our present study, and this likely reflects the lower RLFP flow rates. These investigators used TCD of the left middle cerebral artery and, interestingly, could detect no cerebral blood flow with this methodology in 2 of 10 patients at an RLFP flow rate of 20 mL · kg1 · min1 and in 6 of 10 patients at 10 mL · kg1 · min1. This finding suggests that RLFP at these low flow rates may produce ischemia to the left cerebral hemisphere in some patients, similar to DHCA.
There are several possible explanations for the decreased left-sided cerebral oxygen saturation seen in many individual patients during RLFP. The first is inadequate flow across the circle of Willis secondary to anatomic variations or abnormalities. Although it is assumed that the cerebral circulation is intact in the newborn infant, 10% of healthy full-term neonates exhibited deviations from normal flow patterns in a study of color Doppler patterns in 53 patients (15). Additionally, CBFV is not identical to cerebral blood flow. Changes in cerebral vascular resistance (e.g., increased resistance) may result in the same CBFV with a decrease in blood flow. Arguing against anatomic problems in the circle of Willis is the finding that in our patients, we demonstrated adequate CBFV on the left side during RLFP with intermittent assessments; seven of nine patients with rSO2i differences of >10% had CBFV the same or greater than the pre-RLFP values. We also demonstrated an intact circle of Willis by demonstrating unchanged CBFV on the right side before RLFP during test occlusion of the right innominate artery during PTFE graft placement.
In this study group, the discrepancy in rSO2i between right- and left-sided monitors actually began before RLFP, with the initiation of cardiopulmonary bypass. A possible explanation for the observed decrease in rSO2i on the left side at the onset of bypass is compromised cerebral venous drainage from the left cerebral hemisphere. Our institutional practice is to retract the left innominate vein with a silastic vessel loop to facilitate surgical access. This maneuver could occlude the vein, potentially decreasing cerebral venous drainage and resulting in an accumulation of desaturated venous blood in the left cerebral hemisphere. NIRS measures saturation in both the arterial and venous systems, and because the cerebral blood volume is 75%85% (16) of venous blood in children, this could explain the lower rSO2i seen on the left side. The persistence of a lower rSO2i after bypass could also be explained by this maneuver, because the innominate vein remains retracted until just before sternal closure.
There are several limitations to this study. The significance of a "low" rSO2i value in any individual patient is unknown. Although there are some data suggesting that prolonged low rSO2i leads to acute neurologic changes in children undergoing open heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (12), the long-term outcome of patients with abnormal rSO2i values has not been studied. Also, although studies in adults and children (11,12) have demonstrated that a relative decrease in rSO2i of 20% from baseline is associated with acute neurologic change, the baseline rSO2i in those studies was 60%70%. During RLFP in our study, the baseline right-sided rSO2i was more than 80% in most patients, with the lowest value for rSO2i during RLFP at 60%, which is more than the baseline preincision value for nearly all of these patients. Therefore, although we can demonstrate an absolute difference of >10% in many patients, the effect of this difference at higher rSO2i on neurologic outcome is not clear and is likely to be less than for lower rSO2i values. It should be emphasized that these relatively high rSO2i values were obtained with our high-flow, pH-stat management,
-receptor blockade protocol, which yielded RLFP flow rates of 64 mL · kg1 · min1. It cannot be assumed that the lower RLFP flow rates of 1030 mL · kg1 · min1, as reported in other studies, will result in left-sided rSO2i values that are more than baseline (6,14).
In conclusion, this study provides evidence that bilateral NIRS monitoring of cerebral oxygenation is useful during neonatal aortic arch reconstruction using RLFP. Bilateral monitoring detects otherwise unrecognizable cerebral desaturation in the left cerebral hemisphere, allowing timely corrective maneuvers to be performed. The long-term consequences of lower saturations on the left side of the brain are unclear.
| Acknowledgments |
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| References |
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