The partial coherence method for assessment of impaired cerebral autoregulation using near-infrared spectroscopy: potential and limitations.

The most important forms of brain injury in premature infants are partly caused by disturbances in cerebral autoregulation. As changes in cerebral intravascular oxygenation (HbD), regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO(2)), and cerebral tissue oxygenation (TOI) reflect changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF), impaired autoregulation can be measured by studying the concordance between HbD/rSO(2)/TOI and the mean arterial blood pressure (MABP), assuming no changes in oxygen consumption, arterial oxygen saturation (SaO(2)), and in blood volume. We investigated the performance of the partial coherence (PCOH) method, and compared it with the coherence method (COH). The PCOH method allows the elimination of the influence of SaO(2) on HbD/rSO(2)/TOI in a linear way. We started from long-term recordings measured in the first days of life simultaneously in 30 infants from three medical centres. We then compared the COH and PCOH results with patient clinical characteristics and outcomes, and concluded that PCOH might be a better method for assessing impaired autoregulation.