Abstract
It has become increasingly clear that complete surgical excision is the best therapeutic approach for the majority of intramedullary spinal cord tumours. There is, however, always a risk in the radical excision of intramedullary spinal cord tumours that a greater postoperative neurological deficit may be inflicted. Extensive dissection can cause damage to the well-functioning cord tissue and/or the anterior spinal artery and penetrating branches. In order to minimize neurological deficits occurring as a result of such damage, the somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) has often been employed as an intraoperative monitor of cord function. The SEP is, however, not an ideal monitor since it reflects primarily the conductivity of the dorsal column. There are many cases in which SEP monitoring has missed motor deficits following damage to the corticospinal tract (CST), which is more devastating than any other neurological deficits1,2. These cases emphasize the need for a direct monitor specific to the CST integrity.
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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Katayama, Y., Tsubokawa, T., Yamamoto, T., Hirayama, T., Maejima, S. (1994). Changes in the corticospinal MEP (D-wave) during microsurgical removal of intramedullary spinal cord tumours: experience in 16 cases. In: Jones, S.J., Hetreed, M., Boyd, S., Smith, N.J. (eds) Handbook of Spinal Cord Monitoring. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1416-5_46
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-1416-5_46
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