Abstract
Midline myelotomy to approach an intramedullary tumor may cause dorsal column injury. Injury to the dorsal columns can result in dysfunction manifesting numbness, dysesthesias, proprioception changes, and sensory ataxia. Dorsal column mapping is a technique to identify the left and right dorsal columns, and the neurophysiological midline of the spinal cord before myelotomy during intramedullary spinal cord tumor surgeries. So far, three methods of dorsal column mapping have been introduced. They are: recording of somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) on the exposed spinal cord with a miniature multielectrode, antidromic sensory nerve action potentials on the peripheral nerves, and phase-reversal SEPs on the scalp. Among them, phase-reversal technique is a fast and easy method which provide real-time feedback to identify the neurophysiologic midline of the spinal cord before myelotomy. Further study is needed to elucidate the role of this technique for prevention of dorsal column injury.
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Seo, H.G., Kang, MG. (2021). Dorsal Column Mapping. In: Chung, C.K. (eds) Surgery of Spinal Cord Tumors Based on Anatomy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7771-0_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7771-0_15
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