Bispectral index: the current tool for monitoring unintended awareness and depth of anesthesia

Background: Awareness under general anesthesia is an unpleasant phenomenon that usually goes unnoticed and neglected. Numerous incidences of intraoperative awareness are not reported. Reasons for awareness might be the inadequate depth of anesthesia, less effective drugs, lack of proper anesthesia monitoring equipment, and untrained medical staff. The purpose of this study is to evaluate intraoperative awareness during general anesthesia and titrate the amount of anesthetic agents according to BIS values among patients and monitor hemodynamic parameters throughout the surgery. Results: The intraoperative awareness reported was 2% in the BIS group and 8% in the non-BIS group. The total propofol consumption in the BIS group was significantly less as compared to the non-BIS group (P value<0 .0001) . Conclusions: The incidence of definite awareness with postoperative recall and propofol consumption was reduced in the BIS group as compared to the non-BIS group.