Use of motor evoked potentials during lateral lumbar interbody fusion reduces postoperative deficits.

Background Context: Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) has gained rather widespread acceptance as a method to mitigate risk to the lumbar plexus during lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) surgery. The most common approach to IONM involves using only electromyography (EMG) monitoring, and the rate of postoperative deficit remains unacceptably high. Other test modalities, such as transcranial electric motor-evoked potentials (tcMEPs) and somatosensory-evoked potentials, may be more suitable for monitoring neural integrity, but they have not been widely adopted during LLIF.