Safe time duration for temporary middle cerebral artery occlusion in aneurysm surgery based on motor-evoked potential monitoring

BACKGROUND: Temporary vessel occlusion of the parent artery is an essential technique for aneurysm surgery. Our aim was to clarify the safe time for temporary occlusion for aneurysm surgery, that is the “safe time duration” (STD), in which brain tissue exposed to ischemia will almost never fall into even the ischemic penumbra during temporary occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA), and even transient postoperative motor impairment will be rare using intraoperative motor-evoked potentials (MEP). METHODS: Twenty-four patients underwent MCA aneurysm clipping surgery with MEP monitoring for 13 ruptured aneurysms and 11 unruptured aneurysms. The duration of vessel occlusion in patients without MEP changes was measured as the STD. Average STD was calculated as 95% confidence interval for the population mean using sample data from patients with MEP changes and patients without changes. RESULTS: All 24 patients received proximal flow control only. Five patients (20.8%) developed significant intraoperative MEP changes. Time to MEP change (i.e., STD) in these patients was 4.6 ± 2.1 min. In patients without MEP changes, STD was 2.7 ± 1.4 min. Average STD was thus 3.1 ± 0.7 min. CONCLUSIONS: The 95% lower confidence limit for average STD was 2.4 min when applying temporary occlusion on the proximal side of the MCA. This STD resembled that previously reported for temporary proximal occlusion of the internal carotid artery.