Spine surgeries impose risk to the spine's surrounding anatomical and physiological structures especially the spinal cord and the nerve roots. Intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) is a technology developed to monitor the integrity of the spinal cord and the nerve roots via the surgery. Transcranial motor evoked potential (TcMEP) (one of the IONM modalities) is adopted to monitor the integrity of the motor pathway of the spinal cord and the motor nerve roots. Recent research suggested that the IONM is conducive as a prognostic tool towards the patient's functional outcome. This paper summarizes the researches of IONM being adopted as a prognostic tool. In addition, this paper highlights the problems associated with the signal parameters as the improvement criteria in the previous researches. Lastly, we review the challenges of TcMEP to achieve a prognostic tool focusing on the factors that could interfere with the generation of a stable TcMEP response. The final section will discuss recommendations for IONM technology to achieve an objective prognostic tool.
Bilateral vocal cord paralysis is a known possible complication following thyroid surgery. It owes to the close relationship between the recurrent laryngeal nerve and the thyroid gland. The most feared complication of bilateral vocal cord paralysis is airway compromise. We report the case of a 39-year-old woman who underwent total thyroidectomy for multinodular goitre. The surgery was uneventful. However she developed stridor in the recovery bay needing intubation. We postulate that the cause was attributed to bilateral vocal cord paresis due to the use of the intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM) whose high setting throughout the surgery was overlooked. She made a complete recovery without the need of a tracheostomy. We share our lessons learnt from this case.