The risk of wakening during surgery will soon be greatly reduced following a collaborative research project between the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne and a Perth-based medical research company, Cortical Dynamics Ltd.

Known in medical jargon as ‘intra-operative awareness’, wakening is one of the most common complications of anaesthesia. An estimated 2000 patients a year have some form of awareness during surgeries performed in Australian hospitals; accounting for 45 per cent of insurance claims against anaesthesiologists.

The problem has been the lack of technology to accurately monitor the state of the brain during anaesthesia.

Current anaesthetic methods involve monitoring a patient’s status with electroencephalogram (EEG)-based monitors. The downfall of these is that in most cases they can only tell if the patient is awake or asleep; not if he or she is in pain.

The Swinburne/Cortical Dynamics research has developed a new technology called the Brain Anaesthesia Response (BAR) monitoring system.

This defines the patient’s hypnotic and analgesic states separately, meaning doctors will be able to tell if the patient needs more hypnotic drugs or sedative agents. Conventional EEG monitors can’t separate these two states, making optimal drug delivery more difficult.

Clinical trials have now started, with the first monitors expected to be on the market in two years.