Prognostic value of somatosensory- and motor-evoked potentials in patients with a non-traumatic coma

A total of 28 patients with non-traumatic coma were studied both with somatosensory- and motor-evoked potentials. While somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEP) have proved to be useful in predicting the outcome in patients with severe brain damage, the aim of this study was to find out whether the additional evaluation of motor-evoked potentials (MEP) could contribute to a better prediction of the outcome than SEP alone. Our results clearly indicate that in terms of prognostic value, SEP are superior to MEP. Nine patients with bilaterally preserved MEP died, while all of the patients with bilaterally preserved SEP and a central conduction time less than or equal to 6.5 ms survived, with a Glasgow outcome score of 1 to 3. Therefore, we cannot recommend the inclusion of MEP in the prognostic evaluation of patients with non-traumatic coma.