Noninvasive monitor accurately assesses response to pain during surgery

Editor's Note

A new measure for assessing the body’s response to painful stimuli during surgery may allow for better anesthesia management, less pain when regaining consciousness, and better postoperative outcomes, this study finds.

The measure, called the nociception (pain) level index, uses an algorithm to process multiple hormonal and neurological reactions, which provides a better, earlier measure of the body’s reflex response to pain during surgery.

A pain monitoring device, PMD-100 (Medasense Biometrics, Ramat-Gan, Israel) is used to generate the nociception (pain) index. 

Traditional monitoring includes factors such as changes in heart rate or blood pressure.

The results show the superiority of combining multiple physiologic measures to evaluate the body’s response to pain during surgery, the authors say.