Intraoperative awareness under general anesthesia is a rare occurrence, with a reported incidence of 0.1-0.2 percent.  The purposes of this advisory are to identify risk factors, provide decision-making tools and stimulate the pursuit and evaluation of strategies that may prevent or reduce the frequency of unintended intraoperative awareness, and provide guidance for the intraoperative use of brain function monitors as they relate to intraoperative awareness.  These guidelines will be published in Anesthesiology in 2006.

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