The use of intermittent and continuous recordings of jugular venous bulb oxygen saturation in the unconscious patient.

Monitoring clinical signs in unconscious patients provides only late information about cerebral deterioration. Ischaemia and hypoxia are the mechanisms of much of the damage. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements provide direct evidence of ischaemia but are intermittent values for what may be an unstable situation. Continuous recordings of CBF and oxygenation are more likely to reveal harmful tendencies to ischaemia and hypoxia at an early stage than intermittent readings. We report our experience with intermittent and also continuous recording of the jugular venous bulb oxygen saturation (JVO2Sat) obtained by fibreoptic oximetry in a group of 10 head injured and 7 septic patients. Simultaneous measurements of CBF by an isotopic xenon clearance method were also made. The JVO2Sat has been suggested to be a reliable indicator of cerebral oxygenation, a low value being indicative of ischaemia. We discuss whether our findings support this statement. There are also variations in JVO2Sat with mean arterial blood pressure and intracranial pressure. These variations have important implications in the interpretation that can be made of one single value of JVO2Sat.