Internal carotid back pressure versus somatosensory evoked potentials to determine shunt requirement

Abstract

The use of a temporary shunt in carotid artery reconstructions remains controversial. A variety of monitoring methods have been proposed to find out those patients who do not tolerate clamping of the internal carotid artery even for a few minutes. In recent years somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) were shown to be a very accurate method to detect hemispheric cerebral ischemia. However, an experienced assistance is neccessary for this method, it may be time consuming, and it may not be available in smaller institutions.