Two cases of improvement of smooth pursuit eye movements after selective posterior rhizotomy.
OBJECTIVE
Selective posterior rhizotomy (SPR) represents a standard neurosurgical approach in the treatment of spasticity in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Beside the reduction of spasticity in lower limbs, SPR may have suprasegmental effects, considerably above the surgery site. In this communication, we report on the improvement of smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) in two children after SPR.


METHODS
Four children with CP underwent SPR. Eye movements were registered by infrared video-oculography before and after the surgery.


RESULTS
The analysis of SPEM showed the improvement of the correlation coefficient of the eye response to the stimulus after SPR in two subjects. Improvement of SPEM performance was largely due to suppression of spontaneous fixation nystagmus.


CONCLUSIONS
SPR may lead to the improvement of SPEM in children with CP. The influence of SPEM improvement on quality of life in a group of severely disabled nonambulant children with CP remains to be assessed.
Horínek
D
D
Department of Neurosurgery, Central Military Hospital, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, U Vojenské nemocnice 1200, 160 00, Prague 6, Czech Republic. dhori@email.cz
Hoza
D
D
Cerný
R
R
Vyhnálek
M
M
Sturm
D
D
Bojar
M
M
Libý
P
P
Oweimrin
M
M
Tichý
M
M
D000293:Adolescent; D002547:Cerebral Palsy / Q000150:complications / Q000601:surgery*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009128:Muscle Spasticity / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D015835:Ocular Motility Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D011698:Pursuit, Smooth / Q000502:physiology*; D019051:Rhizotomy