Comparison of kinemyography and electromyography during spontaneous recovery from non-depolarising neuromuscular blockade

C. Khandkar, S. Liang*, S. Phillips, C. Y. Lee, P. A. Stewart

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study compared two commercially available quantitative neuromuscular function monitoring techniques, kinemyography (KMG) and electromyography (EMG), to assess whether KMG could be used interchangeably with EMG to exclude residual neuromuscular blockade (RNMB). Train-of-four (TOF) ratios were recorded every 20 seconds using KMG at the adductor pollicis and EMG at the first dorsal interosseous of the same hand during spontaneous recovery from shallow neuromuscular blockade. TOF ratios were compared using Bland-Altman analysis for repeated measurements. The precision of each device was assessed by the repeatability coefficient. Agreement between devices was assessed by the bias and limits of agreement. Clinically acceptable agreement was defined as a bias <0.025 within limits of agreement ±0.05. We recorded 629 sets of TOF ratios from 23 patients. The repeatability coefficient for KMG was 0.05 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.05 to 0.06) and for EMG 0.10 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.11). Overall, the bias of KMG TOF ratios against EMG TOF ratios was 0.11 (95% CI 0.10 to 0.12), with limits of agreement-0.11 to 0.32. In the 0.80 to 0.99 TOF range, the bias was 0.08 (95% CI 0.06 to 0.09) and the limits of agreement were-0.12 to 0.27. Overall, TOF ratios measured by KMG were on average 0.11 higher than EMG. In the 0.80 to 0.99 TOF range, KMG TOF ratios were 0.08 higher. EMG and KMG are not interchangeable because the bias is large and the limits of agreement are wide. Thus a maximum TOF ratio of 1.0 on KMG may not exclude RNMB.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)745-751
Number of pages7
JournalAnaesthesia and Intensive Care
Volume44
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2016
Externally publishedYes

Cite this