Pediatric Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring and Long-Term Outcomes in a Developing Country.

PURPOSE

Pediatric intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) has been shown to be effective in preventing and reversing postoperative neurological deficits in developed countries. There are currently no published studies from developing countries that describe neurophysiological findings and postoperative outcomes. Our study aims to address these gaps in children undergoing neurosurgical procedures in a single center.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective study of case series of children who underwent IONM (2014-2020) in the State of Mexico, Mexico. Sociodemographic characteristics, IONM modalities, changes during procedures, and short-term and long-term postoperative results were recorded. Descriptive statistics were used.

RESULTS

We included 35 patients (≤18 years of age), 57% (20/35) boys. A relative increase of up to 5 times in the use of IONM is observed from 2014 (5.7%) to 2020 (25.7%) in our center. The most frequent preoperative pathologies were located at the infratentorial cranium (40%), followed by the spine and spinal cord (37.1%). The IONM modalities were as follows: free-running EMG 94.3%, transcranial electrical stimulation motor-evoked potentials 91.4%, somatosensory-evoked potentials 85.7%, triggered EMG 28.6%, EEG 25.7%, and visual-evoked potentials 5.7%. Only in 8.3%, we did not obtain sufficient evoked potential baseline signals. At 24 hours postoperatively true negatives were 100%. Long-term follow-up was completed in 22/35 (63%) at 3 months, 12/35 (34.2%) at 6 months, and 5/35 (14.3%) at 12 months with progressive motor and sensory improvement.

CONCLUSIONS

Pediatric multimodal IONM in neurosurgeries from a single center in a developing country is mainly used in pathologies of the posterior fossa, spine, and spinal cord, with true negatives in 100% of those monitored, preventing and avoiding postoperative sequelae.