Advantage of Using Intraoperative Visual Evoked Potentials to Preserve Visual Function During Surgical Procedures Near the Optical Pathways

Visual morbidity (visual acuity and/or visual field deficit) must be taken into account during neurosurgical procedures for lesions near the optical pathways. Part of this morbidity is due to surgical manipulation. There is no validated tool for intraoperative visual monitoring and few publications have studied this issue. In a preliminary work based on analysis of these publications, we defined technical, anaesthetic and analytical parameters in order to optimise intraoperative visual evoked potentials monitoring. These parameters are special devices used for transpalpebral stimulation, complete intravenous anaesthesia without halogen or nitrous oxide, and pertinent analysis criteria of visual evoked potential (VEP). We suppose that these improvements will increase reliability of intraoperative VEP.