Safe transcranial electric stimulation motor evoked potential monitoring during posterior spinal fusion in two patients with cochlear implants

• Published in: Journal of clinical monitoring and computing Vol. 30; no. 4; pp. 503 - 506
• Main Authors: Yellin, Joseph L., Wiggins, Cheryl R., Franco, Alier J., Sankar, Wudbhav N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-08-2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Anesthesiology; Brief Communication; Child; Cochlear Implants; Critical Care Medicine; Evoked Potentials, Motor - physiology; Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory - physiology; Female; Health Sciences; Humans; Intensive; Male; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Monitoring, Intraoperative; Scoliosis - surgery; Spinal Fusion - methods; Statistics for Life Sciences; Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation; Transcranial electric stimulation; Pediatrics; Somatosensory evoked potentials; Neuromonitoring; Cochlear implant; Intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring; Motor evoked potentials; Posterior spinal fusion
• ISSN: 1387-1307; 1573-2614
• DOI: 10.1007/s10877-015-9730-7

Transcranial electric stimulation (TES) motor evoked potentials (MEPs) have become a regular part of intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring (IONM) for posterior spinal fusion (PSF) surgery. Almost all of the relative contraindications to TES have come and gone. One exception is in the case of patients with a cochlear implant (CI). Herein we illustrate two cases of pediatric patients with CIs who underwent PSF using TES MEPs as part of IONM. In both instances the patients displayed no untoward effects from TES, and post-operatively both CIs were intact and functioning as they were prior to surgery.