Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Dec 2018
Multicenter StudyElectrophysiological multimodal assessments improve outcome prediction in traumatic cervical spinal cord injury.
Outcome prediction after spinal cord injury (SCI) is essential for early counseling and orientation of the rehabilitative intervention. Moreover, prognostication of outcome is crucial to achieving meaningful stratification when conceiving clinical trials. Neurophysiological examinations are commonly employed for prognostication after SCI, but whether neurophysiology could improve the functional prognosis based on clinical predictors remains an open question. ⋯ Adding neurophysiological variables to the model, the AUC increased significantly: 0.956 (95% CI: 0.930-0.982; p = 0.019). More patients could be correctly classified by adding the electrophysiological data. Our study demonstrates that neurophysiological assessment improves the prediction of functional prognosis after traumatic cervical SCI, and suggests the use of neurophysiology to optimize patient information, rehabilitation, and discharge planning and the design of future clinical trials.