Intra-operatory Neurophysiological Monitoring Changes as a Predictive Clinical Outcome Measure in Radiculopathy Associated to Lumbar Disk Disease. Two Years Follow-up

Radiculopathy associated to lumbar disk disease is one of the most common reasons for a spine surgeon to be consulted. The pathophysiology of degenerative spine disease is acknowledged as complex, involving a wide array of risk factors ranging from genetic polymorphisms, to behavioural characteristics. While conflicting opinions exist with regard the direction of treatment for lumbar disk disease, de-compressive surgery is currently the gold standard for patients in which protocols of physiotherapy and analgesics have failed to comply.

Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) is widely used in the practice of spine surgery as a mean of preventing and reducing severe complications inherent to surgical techniques like paraparesis, paraplegia and quadriplegia. Indeed, a great deal of funding and work have been devoted to research projects seeking to determine the impact of IONM in reducing these risks. The results of such projects have been notoriously interesting, and frequently opposing to each other. This has lead to an open debate on weather the use of IONM may or not be justified by better outcomes in patients who undergo such procedure. To our knowledge there is no study in the literature that has addressed the potential role of the IOM to predict the long-term outcome of the patient in therms of radicular symptoms improvement.