Sedation Depth in Neurocritical Care

Background: Sedation of the intensive care unit (ICU) patient is necessary to relieve the patient from pain, anxiety and agitation and to enable mechanical ventilation, diagnostic investigations and invasive procedures. While sedation policy has shifted from deep sedation to moderate, minimal, or even no sedation in the general ICU, optimal sedation of the cerebrovascular ICU patient is unclear and controversial. Method: MOderate vs DEep Regime in NeuroIntensive care SEdation (MODERNISE) is a prospective, randomized, open, two-center trial. Patients with acute ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage or subarachnoid hemorrhage who need to be ventilated are eligible for enrollment. It is intended to enroll 50 patients per group (n=100). Patients are randomized within 72h from admission to either moderate sedation as defined by Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale (RASS) \>= -3 or to deep sedation as defined by RASS \< -3 for the next 72h, after which weaning from sedation is aimed for in a stepwise fashion in both groups. If reduction of sedation is not feasible, patients remain at their respective sedation level for another 12 hours, and sedation reduction is then tried again. Patients are multimodally monitored for systemic and cerebral parameters (the latter including bispectral index (BIS) monitoring). The primary endpoint is ICU length of stay (ICU-LOS); secondary endpoints are several pre-defined variables of the ICU course, feasibility of sedation levels without violation of pre-defined safety criteria, pre-defined complications, and short- and long-term functional outcome and mortality. Conclusion: The feasibility, safety and benefits of moderate as opposed to deep sedation even in the acute phase of severe cerebrovascular disease needs to be clarified in a prospective randomized study. Results from this study might change sedation regimes and help prevent unwanted effects of deep sedation in the brain-injured patient.