Professionals from the Doctor José Molina Orosa University Hospital, a center attached to the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands, have successfully developed the "first three surgical interventions" under the technique of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring. "This procedure provides real-time information to healthcare personnel about the patient's nerve function at the time of the operation, which results in surgical safety, minimizes the risk of injury, and facilitates decision-making."
The surgery and traumatology services have been responsible for performing these surgeries, two thyroid surgeries and one hip surgery. In the case of the traumatology team, it was a patient with coxarthrosis, who underwent a total hip replacement, while the interventions performed by the surgery team consisted of the removal of the thyroid gland.
In all three surgeries, intraoperative monitoring allowed the detection of possible alterations in the neurological function of the patients, as this technique is based on the application of electrical stimuli through electrodes that are placed on the patient and removed when they are anesthetized.
For the preparation of both interventions, medical and nursing staff from the hospital center participated in a specific training course on this procedure, taught by the head of Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring and the head of Endocrine Surgery of the University Hospital of the Canary Islands, Pedro Pérez Lorensu and Nieves Lorenzo Rocha, respectively.
The theoretical sessions addressed the different neurophysiological techniques that are used in the operating room to monitor the patient's nerve function, including those applied by the professionals of Molina Orosa.