ABSTRACT
Introduction: The purpose of this study is to identify the advancing role of Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring (IONM) in detecting and preventing nerve injuries during shoulder surgery procedures. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of IONM data from ten shoulder procedures. The patients consisted of nine females and one male with ages ranging from 67 to 81 years (median: 74 years). IONM modalities utilized were bilateral Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SSEP), Transcranial Motor Evoked Potentials (TCeMEP), ipsilateral Electromyogram (EMG) from upper extremity muscles and Train of four (TOF) recordings. Results: A decrease in signals was noted in three patients (30%). Only upper SSEP amplitude decreased in one patient; both upper extremity SSEP and TCeMEP decreased in two patients. Only one patient had poor baseline radial nerve SSEP that improved during the surgery. We performed spontaneous EMG (s-EMG) in all ten patients and successfully recorded triggered (t-EMG) in seven patients (71.4%). In one patient, SSEP and TCeMEP did not improve, and the patient woke up with deficits. Conclusions: In this small series, we were able to identify real-time impending nerve injury. The use of IONM alerted and may have prevented intraoperative nerve injury in 30% of the patients in this series. In one patient, SSEP and TCeMEP did not recover even after the intervention due to severe blood loss. The patient woke up with sensory and motor deficits. The utilization of multimodality IONM can be helpful due to signal changes, therefore minimizing the frequency of nerve injury and deficits.
