Pediatric research
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In a prospective study, we monitored simultaneously left and right parieto-frontal-cerebral oxygen saturation (rScO2) and cerebral fractional tissue oxygen extraction (cFTOE) using near-infrared spectroscopy in 36 very preterm neonates during the first 3 d of life. Simple regression analysis showed a close correlation between left and right rScO2 (r = 0.89, p < 0.01) and cFTOE (r = 0.88, p < 0.01), respectively. ⋯ However, we found that during stable systemic oxygenation (i.e., arterial oxygen saturation [SaO2 between 85 and 97%]) the limits of agreement between left and right improved from -7.8 to +8.2% and -0.088 to +0.084 for rScO2 and cFTOE, respectively (all p < 0.05). We conclude that bilateral near-infrared spectroscopy-measured rScO2 and cFTOE can reveal differences up to 10% between left and right hemisphere, especially during unstable arterial saturations, which may indicate uneven cerebral oxygenation.