THE DIAGNOSTIC VALUE OF SOMATOSENSORY EVOKED
POTENTIALS FOR PARALYSIS IN PEDIATRICS
Xiao Nong and Cai Fangcheng
Children¡¯s Medical University,
Chongqing, China
Since the location of lesion
for paralysis in children is often difficult to determinate in the clinical
pediatric practice. Comparing the normal date of Somatosensory Evoked
Potentials (SEP) along medium and tibial nerve in 180 healthy children aged
0-14 years old, 335 patients aged from 2 month to 14 years old with
extremity paralysis were recorded by SEP for diagnostic purpose. Among the
266 subjects with spastic paralysis, abnormal SEP were present in 230/266
cases (86.5%). Consisting of delayed latencies of main peak or completely
absence of spinal and/or scalp recording, but still within normal range of
their peripheral potentials. The incidence of abnormalities SEP were higher
in spinal diseases (25/27 cases, 92.6%) and cerebral palsy (139/161 cases,
86.3%), that were both more than other CNS diseases .In the cases of
cranial lesion, the abnormalities SEP in surpatentorial lesions were more
common than postfovea .In the 69 children with flaccid paralysis, 20.3% (14
patients) presented abnormal peripheral potentials of SEP. The results of
the study indicated that SEP is valuable to determinate the possible
location pathologically particularly for spinal and cortical lesions.
Comparing the abnormalities rate of SEP, there were no significant
difference between the two age groups, older and younger than 3 years old
.It was suggested SEP would also be valuable diagnostic test for the
paralysis in infants.
Key words:
Somatosensory Evoked Potentials, paralysis, Children