Prognostic capacity of automated quantification of suppression time in the EEG of post-asphyctic full-term neonates.

Aim: To evaluate the prognostic capacity of a new method for automatic quantification of the length of suppression time in the electroencephalogram (EEG) of a group of asphyxiated newborn infants. Methods: Twenty-one full-term newborn infants who had been resuscitated for severe birth asphyxia were studied. Eight channel continuous EEG was recorded for prolonged time periods during the first days of life. Artefact detection or rejection was not applied to the signals. The signals were fed through a pretrained classifier and then segmented into burst and suppression periods. Total suppression length per hour was calculated. All surviving patients were followed with structured neurodevelopmental assessments to at least 18 months of age. Results: The patients who developed neurodevelopmental disability or died had significant suppression periods in their EEG during the first days of life while the patients who had a normal follow-up had no or negligible amount of suppression. Conclusions: This new method for automatic quantification of suppression periods in the raw, neonatal EEG discriminates infants with good from those with poor outcome