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Volume 359:427-431 July 24, 2008 Number 4
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Anesthesia Awareness and the Bispectral Index

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by Orser, B. A.
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by Avidan, M. S.
-PubMed Citation
To the Editor: Avidan et al. (March 13 issue)1 confirm that bispectral index (BIS)–guided care achieves a 0.2% incidence of awareness during anesthesia in high-risk patients, as previously reported,2 but further conclusions and recommendations are not supported. Despite the investigators' original hypothesis "that the incidence of awareness [with an end-tidal protocol] will be equivalent to or lower" than that with a BIS-guided protocol,3 the sample-size calculation erroneously assumed no treatment effect for the anesthetic protocol (Table 1). Consequently, this study had an 80% probability of missing a 50% difference in the relative efficacy of the two interventions.4

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  		Table 1. Appropriate . . . [Full Text of this Article]

 


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