Intraoperative direct electrocortical stimulation for glioma surgery
see also Awake surgery for glioma.
see also Resting-state functional magnetic resonance for glioma surgery.
Stimulation-induced seizures (SISs) are rare but serious events during electrocortical stimulation (ECS) mapping. SISs are most common when mapping the frontal lobe. Greater stimulation current is not associated with the identification of more cortical functional sites during glioma surgery 1).
Glioma surgery represents a significant advance with respect to improving resection rates using new surgical techniques, including intraoperative functional mapping, monitoring, and imaging. Functional mapping under awake craniotomy can be used to detect individual eloquent tissues of speech and/or motor functions in order to prevent unexpected deficits and promote extensive resection. In addition, monitoring the patient’s neurological findings during resection is also very useful for maximizing the removal rate and minimizing deficits by alarming that the touched area is close to eloquent regions and fibers. Assessing several types of evoked potentials, including motor evoked potentials (MEPs), sensory evoked potentials (SEPs), and visual evoked potentials (VEPs), is also helpful for performing surgical monitoring in patients under general anesthesia (GA) 2).
The greater extent of resection (EOR) of low-grade gliomas is associated with improved survival. Proximity to eloquent cortical regions often limits resectability and elevates the risk of surgery-related deficits. Therefore, functional localization of eloquent cortex or subcortical fiber tracts can enhance the EOR and functional outcome. Imaging techniques such as functional MRI and diffusion tensor imaging fiber tracking, and neurophysiological methods like navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation and magnetoencephalography, make it possible to identify eloquent areas prior to resective surgery and to tailor indication and surgical approach but also to assess the surgical risk. Intraoperative monitoring with direct cortical stimulation and subcortical stimulation enables surgeons to preserve essential functional tissue during surgery. Through tailored, pre-and intraoperative mapping and monitoring the EOR can be maximized, with reduced rates of surgery-related deficits 3).
As the most accurate and reliable method of brain functional area positioning, Intraoperative direct electrocortical stimulation is able to determine in real-time the parts of the brain necessary for such functions as movement, sensation, language, and even memory. A meta-analysis suggested that it could also improve the degree of resection of glioma while reducing the incidence of permanent neurological dysfunction 4).
Findings suggest that surgeons using Intraoperative direct electrocortical stimulation and awake craniotomy during their resections of high-grade glioma in eloquent areas experienced better surgical outcomes: a significantly longer overall postoperative survival, a lower rate of postoperative complications, and a higher percentage of GTR 5).
Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging likely reflects similar neural information as detected with intraoperative direct electrocortical stimulation (DES), but in its current form does not reach the spatial resolution of DES. 6).