Background: Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an upcoming clinical method for monitoring regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rScO2) in neonates. There is a growing market offering different devices and sensors. Even though this technique is increasingly clinically applied, little is known about the similarities and/or differences in rScO2 values between the different devices and sensors. The aim of this study was to compare the rScO2 values obtained in (preterm) neonates with all available sensors of three frequently used NIRS devices.
Methods: Fifty-five neonates admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) were included in this study. rScO2 was simultaneously monitored bilaterally with two different NIRS sensors (left and right frontoparietal) for at least 1 h. Then, the sensors were switched, and measurements were collected for at least another hour.
Results: We detected a rather close correlation between all investigated sensors from the three different NIRS devices, but absolute rScO2 values showed substantial differences: Bland-Altman analysis showed average differences from 10 to 15%.
Conclusion: Although the rScO2 values correlated well between different NIRS sensors, sometimes there were substantial differences between the absolute rScO2 values, which may complicate clinical application.