Somatosensory Evoked Potentials and Nerve Conduction Studies in Patients with Chronic Alcoholism

J Korean Assoc EMG Electrodiagn Med 2004;6(2):177-181.
Published online May 10, 2004.

Abstract

Objectives: Alcohol is one of the main causes for polyneuropathy and only total abstinence from alcohol can give a chance of regeneration or halt of the disease. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment are essential for public health problem. Nerve conduction studies are commonly used to evaluate the function of large myelinated fibers, and are often found to be within normal limits in an early state of polyneuropathy. We assessed somatosensory evoked potentials to determine usefulness in detecting electrophysiologic abnormalities in the early state of polyneuropathy in alcoholics. Methods: We performed nerve conduction studies and somatosensory evoked potentials from posterior tibial nerve stimulation in alcoholic patients having clinical symptoms or signs of polyneuropathy. Among them, we recruited 15 alcoholics who had normal values of nerve conduction studies. Control subjects were age and height matched 18 healthy volunteers. Results: The mean latency of spinal evoked potentials was 22.4 msec for the control subjects and 21.5 msec in for the alcoholics. The mean latency of cortical evoked potentials was 39.3 msec and 41.3 msec respectively. The cortical evoked potentials were significantly prolonged in alcoholics compared to control subjects. The mean central conduction time was not different between groups. Conclusions: This study demonstrate that the latency of cortical evoked potentials is prolonged in the alcoholics with clinically suspected polyneuropathy and the somatosensory evoked potentials can be a useful diagnostic test for early detection of alcoholic polyneuropathy.

Key Words: Alcoholism, Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP), Nerve conduction study