Algorithm of Muscle Function Tests to Detect Residual Neuromuscular Blockade.

Background: Quantitative neuromuscular monitoring is the gold standard to detect postoperative residual curarization (PORC). Many anesthesiologists, however, use insensitive, qualitative neuromuscular monitoring or unreliable, clinical tests. Goal of this multicentre, prospective, double-blinded, assessor controlled study is to develop an algorithm of muscle function tests to identify PORC. Methods: After extubation a blinded anesthetist performs eight clinical tests in 165 patients. Test results are correlated to calibrated electromyography train-of-four (TOF) ratio and to a postoperatively applied uncalibrated acceleromyography. A classification and regression tree (CART) is calculated developing the algorithm to identify PORC. This is validated against uncalibrated acceleromyography and tactile judgement of TOF fading in separate 100 patients.