Intraoperative motor evoked potential in meningioma surgery: Diagnostic accuracy from institutional data and Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVE

We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of transcranial electrical stimulation motor evoked potentials (TES-MEP) in predicting immediate postoperative motor deficits in meningioma surgery.

METHODS

A total of 319 patients who underwent intracranial meningioma resection with TES-MEP monitoring were retrospectively analyzed. The correlation of intraoperative TES-MEP changes with motor outcomes assessed on the day of surgery was examined. A systematic review and meta-analysis of TES-MEP studies, including mixed tumor types because of limited meningioma-only data, was conducted.

RESULTS

In our cohort, the overall accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of TES-MEP were 96.9 %, 75.0 %, and 97.7 %, respectively. False-negative rates were significantly higher in patients with falx-involving meningiomas (11.5 % vs. 0 %). The pooled diagnostic odds ratio, negative likelihood ratio, and false omission rate in the meta-analysis of seven studies (735 patients) were 19.0, 0.635, and 7.8 %, respectively. Delayed deficits were included in false-negative classifications in some studies.

CONCLUSIONS

TES-MEP offers a high diagnostic accuracy in meningioma surgery but exhibits a reduced sensitivity to falx tumors.

SIGNIFICANCE: Refined stimulation strategies and multimodal monitoring are needed to improve TES-MEP reliability in certain tumor locations. Future studies should apply standardized definitions to assess diagnostic accuracy consistently.