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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Nov 27, 2016; 5(3): 62-66
Published online Nov 27, 2016. doi: 10.5313/wja.v5.i3.62
Awareness during anesthesia: Current status in Japan
Yasuhiro Morimoto
Yasuhiro Morimoto, Department of Anesthesia, Ube Industries Central Hospital, Yamaguchi 755-0151, Japan
Author contributions: Morimoto Y wrote all manuscript and figures.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report. There is no conflict of interest associated with the author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yasuhiro Morimoto, MD, Department of Anesthesia, Ube Industries Central Hospital, 750 Nishikiwa Ube, Yamaguchi 755-0151, Japan. yasumorimo@gmail.com
Telephone: +81-836-222291
Received: July 23, 2016
Peer-review started: July 29, 2016
First decision: September 6, 2016
Revised: October 3, 2016
Accepted: October 22, 2016
Article in press: October 24, 2016
Published online: November 27, 2016
Abstract

Intraoperative awareness is the explicit recall of sensory perceptions during general anesthesia. I presume the epidemiology and characteristics of intraoperative awareness from these surveys in Japan. A questionnaire survey was conducted via the Internet. The first survey was conducted in 2008. Our survey showed 17% of anesthesiologists experienced definite or possible awareness. The second survey was conducted to evaluate the first survey in detail in 2008. A total of 172 anesthesiologists answered. The total number of reported anesthetic cases was 85156. Twenty-four cases of definite or possible awareness were reported by 21 anesthesiologists. The most surprising finding was total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) was used in 21 of the 24 cases. The third survey was conducted in 2011 as a continuous survey. Six cases of definite or possible awareness were reported by six anesthesiologists (7%). Two cases were maintained by TIVA, and 2 cases were sevoflurane. The survey showed 76% anesthesiologists routinely use bispectral index (BIS) for TIVA, but for sevoflurane only 27% anesthesiologists routinely use BIS. The incidence of intraoperative awareness decreased in the third survey. The continuous survey revealed the current status of daily anesthesia and the results might be used to prevent the awareness during general anesthesia.

Keywords: Awareness, Bispectral index, Sevoflurane, Total intravenous anesthesia

Core tip: The epidemiology and characteristics of intraoperative awareness from these surveys in Japan are reviewed in this manuscript. The incidence of intraoperative awareness decreased in the third survey. The continuous survey revealed the current status of daily anesthesia and the results might be used to prevent the awareness during general anesthesia.