Visual function assessed by visually evoked potentials in adults with orbital and other primary intracranial tumors

Monitoring of visual-evoked potentials during fat packing in endoscopic resection of a giant pituitary adenoma

Background

Endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery has become a mainstay surgical approach for sellar pathologies and can effectively decompress mass effects on the optic nerves. Visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) have been utilized as an intraoperative adjunct during endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery to monitor the integrity of the optic pathways, but the data surrounding its reliability and efficacy remain heterogeneous.

Case Description

An 80-year-old male underwent endoscopic transsphenoidal resection of a pituitary macroadenoma with preoperative visual deficits related to optic nerve compression. During fat packing of the resection cavity, a decrease in VEPs was noted, which seemingly improved after partial fat removal, although with paradoxically reduced VEP latencies. Despite this, the patient developed a visual field deficit postoperatively, requiring re-operation for further removal of the fat packing.

Conclusion

This was a case of initially poorly formed VEPs that deteriorated and apparently improved following surgical intervention. The finding of shortened latencies of the VEPs was likely from noise contamination, creating the illusion of improved signal amplitudes. We recommend careful assessment of VEP data for baseline reproducibility, particularly in patients with pre-existing visual field deficits. Appropriate anesthetic selection is also important to reduce noise interference from the electroencephalogram.

Intraoperative Neuromonitoring of the Visual Pathway in Asleep Neuro-Oncology Surgery

Brain tumour surgery in visual eloquent areas poses significant challenges to neurosurgeons and has reported inconsistent results. This is a single-centre prospective cohort study of patients admitted for asleep surgery of intra-axial lesions in visual eloquent areas. Demographic and clinical information, data from tractography and visual evoked potentials (VEPs) monitoring were recorded and correlated with visual outcomes. Thirty-nine patients were included (20 females, 19 males; mean age 52.51 ± 14.08 years). Diffuse intrinsic glioma was noted in 61.54% of patients. There was even distribution between the temporal, occipital and parietal lobes, while 55.26% were right hemispheric lesions. Postoperatively, 74.4% remained stable in terms of visual function, 23.1% deteriorated and 2.6% improved. The tumour infiltration of the optic radiation on tractography was significantly related to the visual field deficit after surgery (p = 0.016). Higher N75 (p = 0.036) and P100 (p = 0.023) amplitudes at closure on direct cortical VEP recordings were associated with no new postoperative visual deficit. A threshold of 40% deterioration of the N75 (p = 0.035) and P100 (p = 0.020) amplitudes correlated with a risk of visual field deterioration. To conclude, direct cortical VEP recordings demonstrated a strong correlation with visual outcomes, contrary to transcranial recordings. Invasion of the optic radiation is related to worse visual field outcomes.