Intraoperative Monitoring of Facial Nerve Function in Cerebellopontine Angle Surgery

Facial nerve paralysis associated with cerebellopontine angle surgery has been reported to range up to 26% in a recent series. Various methods of intraoperatively monitoring the facial nerve have been developed to reduce the incidence of facial paralysis. We report our experience with an intraoperative monitoring technique using intramuscular EMG electrodes to detect subclinical electrical responses that were amplified and made audible to the operating surgeon after gating stimulus artifacts. A 3.6% incidence of facial paralysis in 111 consecutive cases with this intraoperative monitoring method compared with 14.5% in 207 previously unmonitored cases indicates significant reduction of this complication in cerebellopontine angle surgery (p < 0.001). Along with this reduction in facial paralysis, an increase in the percentage of partial facial paresis was observed in the monitored group (p < 0.05). The percentage of those with intact facial function was similar in the monitored (82.0%) and unmonitored groups (78.3%).