Multimodal intraoperative monitoring: towards a routine use in surgical treatment of severe spinal disorders

Excerpt

With the rapid development of imaging techniques and better understanding of structural and functional pathology of the spine and spinal cord there has been a worldwide increase in the number of spine surgeries performed, particularly in specialized interdisciplinary spine centers. In addition to congenital and acquired deformities of the spine and relatively rare spinal cord tumors, common degenerative spine disease within the aging general population contributes to a growing number of pathologies with myelopathies. This is important because antecedent myelopathy increases spinal cord risk during surgical treatment. The possibility of having functional neurophysiological assessment during spine and spinal cord surgery was introduced in the 1970s by applying somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) as well as spinal evoked potentials. …