[Median nerve SEP and prognosis in neurological intensive medicine--a study of 255 patients].

The prognostic implications of bilaterally abolished cortical median-nerve evoked somatosensory potentials were examined in a retrospective study of 255 patients with neurological disease requiring intensive unit treatment. In 57 cases, we encountered bilaterally abolished somatosensory potentials. Of these patients, 54 died during the course of hospital treatment, 3 other were referred to other hospitals in the state of irreversible apallic syndromes. We did not encounter the reappearance of once abolished somatosensory cortical potentials. It follows from these findings that the bilaterally abolished somatosensory potentials are correlated with a very poor prognosis. In several selected cases the special aspects of patients with circumscript infratentorial lesions are discussed.