The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial
A randomized crossover study of the effects of lidocaine on motor- and sensory-evoked potentials during spinal surgery.
Lidocaine has emerged as a useful adjuvant anesthetic agent for cases requiring intraoperative monitoring of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) and somatosensory-evoked potentials (SSEPs). A previous retrospective study suggested that lidocaine could be used as a component of propofol-based intravenous anesthesia without adversely affecting MEP or SSEP monitoring, but did not address the effect of the addition of lidocaine on the MEP and SSEP signals of individual patients. ⋯ Lidocaine may be used as a component of balanced anesthesia during multilevel spinal fusions without adversely affecting the monitoring of SSEPs or MEPs in individual patients.