Despite growing use of critical care electroencephalography (ccEEG) to detect seizures and status epilepticus in the intensive care unit (ICU), integrating ccEEG findings with traditionally described benign EEG variants (BEVs) is a relatively new concept. BEV-like waveforms are now increasingly encountered in the ICU, and have also been explicitly included in proposed definitions of brief potentially ictal rhythmic discharges (BIRDs) in the ICU, bringing to the fore the question of if and which EEG patterns in critically ill patients can be safely deemed "benign". Though well-characterized as benign in healthy outpatients at low pre-test risk for neurologic disease, the significance of BEVs in the ICU remains largely unknown. Simultaneously, there has been mounting evidence to suggest that certain BEVs can arise from heterogeneous intracranial sources, including some pathologic generators. We conducted an extensive literature review on all known BEVs to assess what is known of BEVs in the ICU. Here we discuss critically ill BEVs and how to interpret them.

中文翻译：

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危重良性脑电图变异：有这样的事情吗？

尽管越来越多地使用重症监护脑电图 (ccEEG) 来检测重症监护病房 (ICU) 中的癫痫发作和癫痫持续状态，但将 ccEEG 发现与传统描述的良性 EEG 变异 (BEV) 相结合是一个相对较新的概念。BEV 类波形现在越来越多地出现在 ICU 中，并且也已明确包含在 ICU 中短暂的潜在发作性节律性放电 (BIRD) 的拟议定义中，从而突出了危重患者是否以及哪种 EEG 模式的问题可以安全地被视为“良性”。尽管 BEV 在神经系统疾病检测前风险较低的健康门诊患者中被明确表征为良性，但 BEV 在 ICU 中的意义在很大程度上仍然未知。同时地，越来越多的证据表明，某些 BEV 可能来自颅内异质来源，包括一些病理源。我们对所有已知的 BEV 进行了广泛的文献综述，以评估 ICU 中 BEV 的已知情况。在这里，我们讨论重症 BEV 以及如何解释它们。