[Brain tissue oxygen pressure, for what, for whom?].

The main purpose of neurointensive care is to fight against cerebral ischaemia. Ischaemia is the cell energy failure following inadequacy between supply of glucose and oxygen and demand. Ischemia monitoring starts with a global approach, especially with cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) determined by mean arterial pressure and intracranial pressure (ICP). However, global monitoring is insufficient to detect "regional" ischaemia, leading to development of local monitoring such as brain oxygen partial pressure (PtiO(2)). PtiO(2) is measured on a volume of a few mm(3) from a probe implanted in the cerebral tissue. The normal value is classically included between 25 and 35 mmHg and critical ischemic threshold is 10 mmHg. Understanding what exactly is PtiO(2) is still a matter of debate. PtiO(2) is more an indicator of oxygen diffusion depending of oxygen arterial pressure (PaO(2)) and local cerebral blood flow (CBF). Increase PaO(2) to treat PtiO(2) would hide information about local CBF. PtiO(2) is useful for the detection of low local CBF even when ICP is low as in hypocapnia-induced vasoconstriction. PtiO(2)-guided management could lead to a continuous optimization of arterial oxygen transport for an optimal cerebral tissue oxygenation. Finally, PtiO(2) has probably a global prognostic value because studies showed that hypoxic values for a long period of time lead to an unfavourable neurologic outcome. In conclusion, PtiO(2) provides additional information for regional monitoring of cerebral ischaemia and deserves more intensive use to better understand it and probably improve neurointensive care management.