Practice Guideline: Use of Quantitative EEG for the Diagnosis of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Report of the Guideline Committee of the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.

Despite many decades of research, controversy regarding the utility of quantitative EEG (qEEG) for the accurate diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) remains. This guideline is meant to assist clinicians by providing an expert review of the clinical usefulness of qEEG techniques for the diagnosis of mTBI. This guideline addresses the following primary aim: For patients with or without posttraumatic symptoms (abnormal cognition or behavior), does qEEG either at the time of injury or remote from the injury, as compared with current clinical diagnostic criteria, accurately identify those patients with mTBI (i.e., concussion)? Secondary aims included differentiating between mTBI and other diagnoses, detecting mTBI in the presence of central nervous system medications, and pertinence of statistical methods for measurements of qEEG components. It was found that for patients with or without symptoms of abnormal cognition or behavior, current evidence does not support the clinical use of qEEG either at the time of the injury or remote from the injury to diagnose mTBI (level U). In addition, the evidence does not support the use of qEEG to differentiate mTBI from other diagnoses or detect mTBI in the presence of central nervous system medications, and suitable statistical methods do not exist when using qEEG to identify patients with mTBI. Based upon the current literature review, qEEG remains an investigational tool for mTBI diagnosis (class III evidence).

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Copyright © 2021 by the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.

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It is the policy of American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS) to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in the development of its guidelines and consensus/professional/societal statements. As such, ACNS requires that anyone who is in a position to control the content of a guideline or consensus/professional/societal statement disclose all financial relationships with commercial interests. Should it be determined that a potential conflict of interest exists as a result of a financial relationship of an author, the ACNS Guidelines Committee takes steps to resolve the conflict. The ACNS Guidelines Committee has determined that none of the authors of this guideline have had relevant financial relationships in the past 36 months and that no conflicts of interest exist. The ACNS provides this information in the spirit of transparency and reminds readers that information about financial relationships alone is not enough to decide whether they are beneficial or improper and that the existence of financial ties does not automatically constitute undue influence or author misconduct.