Peri- and Post-operative Amplitude-integrated Electroencephalography in Infants with Congenital Heart Disease

ABSTRACT

Objective: To identify the factors influencing brain injury in infants with congenital heartdisease (CHD) after cardiac surgery. Methods: This retrospective study investigated 103infants with CHD undergoing cardiac surgery between January 2013 and February 2016.Pre- and postoperative amplitude-integrated electroencephalography (aEEG) recordingswere assessed for background pattern, sleep-wake cycle pattern and seizure activity.Logistic regression model was used to determine the influencing factors of brain injury.Results: Pre-operatively, most infants in our study exhibited a normal background pattern,with 16.5% showing discontinuous normal voltage, whereas this pattern was observed inonly 7.8% of infants postoperatively. The improvement in background pattern after surgerywas significant (P<0.05) in infants at no more than 39 weeks of gestational age. Infants withpostoperative sepsis or severe postoperative infection were prone to show a worse sleep-wake cycle pattern after heart surgery. Conclusion: The improvement in brain function ofinfants with CHD after cardiac surgery was associated with the gestational age andpostoperative infection