Motor evoked potentials by transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage.

The indication of operation for hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage (HICH) is mainly determined by the extention and volume of the hematoma on initial CT findings1)2). Howevere, CT findings are not always indicate the exact involvement of the internal capsule and prediction of the outcome of patients.The Authors then studied motor evoked potential (MEP) in patients with HICH and analyzed the degree and prognosis of motor dysfunction. When MEP of the patients with HICH is recorded on admission, the degrees of motor paresis improved, even if initial CT showed involvement of the posterior limb of the internal capsule. The motor dysfunction also inproved by surgical treatment, and the motor paresis successfully improved for these patients. MEP recording is therefore valuable to predict the motor dysfunction and to determine the indication of operation for the patients with these patients.