Intraoperative improvement of somatosensory evoked potentials and local spinal cord blood flow in patients with syringomyelia.

This report is the first to correlate data concerning intraoperative somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs) and local spinal cord blood flow (ISCBF) in patients with syringomyelia. In a consecutive study, bilateral median nerve SSEPs were recorded intraoperatively in 13 patients undergoing a syrinx shunt to the posterior fossa cisterns (syringocisternostomy). ISCBF was measured in five of these patients using laser doppler flowmetry (LDF) calibrated in arbitrary units (AU). SSEP recordings obtained 30 min after syrinx decompression demonstrated a slight but consistent reduction of N20 latencies (mean change: 0.53 ms right, p < 0.003; 0.58 ms left, p < 0.001) concurrent with a similar but less consistent increase of N20 amplitudes (0.16 mV right, p = 0.256; 0.29 mV left, p = 0.03). Prior to shunting, LDF recordings from the spinal cord overlying syrinxes revealed very low ISCBF values in five of five patients (mean LDF, 13.2 AU +/- 15.3 SD). Immediately after shunting, there was a dramatic rise of ISCBF (mean LDF, 241.2 AU +/- 106.3 SD) associated with visualized hyperemia of the spinal cord and pial vessels. The ISCBF fell to intermediate levels after 2 min (157.2 AU +/- 33.0 SD) and remained at these levels during the interval of recording (5 min). Hyperventilation testing in two patients prior to shunting revealed no change in ISCBF consistent with a loss of CO2 vascular reactivity and a paradoxical increase of ISCBF in one patient 5 min after shunting. Each patient in this study experienced neurological improvement in the immediate postoperative period associated with collapse or disappearance of the syrinx on magnetic resonance imaging scans. Because syrinx shunting results in an acute decompression of the distended spinal cord, it is possible that the rapid improvement of SSEPs reflects a relief of mechanical factors such as stretching and compression of nervous tissue. However, the LDF findings in this study suggest that distended spinal cord cavities are also capable of producing regional ischemia. A significant reduction of ISCBF is a possible contributing cause of neurological injury and SSEP abnormalities. Intraoperative improvement of SSEPs and ISCBF were found to correlate well with neurological recovery following syringocisternostomy. Our results indicate that SSEP monitoring can provide useful information during surgical procedures for syringomyelia and that further experience with LDF monitoring may provide insights into the pathophysiology of this condition.