Impact of Age on the Occurrence of Processed Electroencephalographic Burst Suppression

Patient age is assumed to be an important risk factor for the occurrence of burst suppression, yet this has still to be confirmed by large datasets.

In this single-center retrospective analysis at a university hospital, the electronic patient records of 38,628 patients (≥18 years) receiving general anesthesia between January 2016 and December 2018 were analyzed. Risk factors for burst suppression were evaluated using univariate and multivariable analysis. We measured the incidence of burst suppression as indicated by the burst suppression ratio (BSR) of the Entropy Module, the maximum and mean BSR values, relative burst suppression duration, mean volatile anesthetic concentrations, and mean age-adjusted minimum alveolar concentrations (aaMAC) at burst suppression, and cases of potentially misclassified burst suppression episodes. Analyses were done separately for the total anesthesia period, as well as for the Induction and Maintenance phase. The association with age was evaluated using linear and polynomial fits and by calculating correlation coefficients.

Of the 54,266 patients analyzed, 38,628 were included, and 19,079 patients exhibited episodes with BSR >0. Patients with BSR >0 were significantly older, and age had the highest predictive power for BSR >0 (area under the receiving operating characteristic [AUROC] = 0.646 [0.638-0.654]) compared to other patient or procedural factors. The probability of BSR >0 increased linearly with patient age (ρ = 0.96-0.99) between 1.9% and 9.8% per year. While maximal and mean BSR showed a nonlinear relationship with age, relative burst suppression duration also increased linearly during maintenance (ρ = 0.83). Further, episodes potentially indicating burst suppression that were not detected by the Entropy BSR algorithm also became more frequent with age. Volatile anesthetic concentrations sufficient to induce BSR >0 were negatively correlated with age (sevoflurane: ρ = -0.71), but remained close to an aaMAC of 1.0.

The probability of burst suppression during general anesthesia increases linearly with age in adult patients, while lower anesthetic concentrations induce burst suppression with increasing patient age. Simultaneously, algorithm-based burst suppression detection appears to perform worse in older patients. These findings highlight the necessity to further enhance EEG application and surveillance strategies in anesthesia.