International multidisciplinary consensus conference on multimodality monitoring: cerebral metabolism

Microdialysis is a powerful technique, which enables the chemistry of the extracellular space to be measured directly. Applying this technique to patients in neurointensive care has increased our understanding of the pathophysiology of traumatic brain injury and spontaneous hemorrhage. In parallel, it is important to determine the place of microdialysis in assisting in the management of patients on an individual intention to treat basis. This is made possible by the availability of analyzers which can measure the concentration of glucose, pyruvate, lactate, and glutamate at the bedside. Samples can then be stored for later analysis of other substrate and metabolites e.g., other amino acids and cytokines. The objective of this paper is to review the fundamental literature pertinent to the clinical application of microdialysis in neurointensive care and to give recommendations on how the technique can be applied to assist in patient management and contribute to outcome. A literature search detected 1,933 publications of which 55 were used for data abstraction and analysis. The role of microdialysis was evaluated in three conditions (traumatic brain injury, subarachnoid hemorrhage, and intracerebral hemorrhage) and recommendations focused on three fundamental areas (relationship to outcome, application of microdialysis to guide therapy, and the ability of microdialysis to predict secondary deterioration).