Continuous Intraocular Pressure Patterns in Spine Surgery

May 5, 2020 updated by: Dr. Kenny Kwan, The University of Hong Kong

Post-operative visual loss is a rare but serious complication after surgery. It is most significantly correlated with prone spinal surgery with a prolonged duration. The cause and risk factors are not elucidated, but the majority of the cases are due posterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (PION). This entity is directly related to the ocular perfusion pressure (OPP), which is estimated as the difference between mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and intraocular pressure (IOP). Autoregulation is believed to maintain a constant perfusion to the optic nerve despite fluctuations in the perfusion pressure.

IOP is known to increase in the prone position thus putting susceptible patients at risk for inadequate ocular nerve perfusion. Most of the evidence comes from animal and healthy volunteer studies and cannot give an accurate insight into the subtle changes of intra-operative IOP. All the published studies employed the use of a tonometer, which may have rooms for measurement errors due to inadvertent pressure on the globe while retracting the eyelids, particularly when there is significant periorbital/conjunctival swelling in the prone position. The majority of the studies recruited healthy volunteers in a simulated surgical setting so other fluctuating parameters, which can affect intraoperative IOP, cannot be measured. In the few reports where patients undergoing surgery in the prone position were studies, IOP measurements were taken at non-continuous monitoring at time intervals, thus the effects of changes in blood volume, MAP, central venous pressure (CVP) and PaCO 2 could not be studied. Lastly, all the literature consists of case series only with no control group so the effect of position cannot be evaluated independently of the other factors.

The investigators therefore propose to conduct a prospective study with continuous intraoperative IOP monitoring to give us further insight into the physiological changes of IOP in patients undergoing spine surgery, and identify the risk factors related to fluctuations of IOP during prone spinal surgery.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Post-operative visual loss (POVL) is a rare but serious complication after surgery.

One of the known associations is prone spinal surgery with a prolonged duration.

The cause is not completely understood, but some of the risk factors for developing POVL include anaemia, hypotension, the duration of surgery and patient factors such as age, hypertension and atherosclerosis. There are also some unidentifiablerisk factors that may predispose young healthy patients to POVL. Once the patient develops POVL, it is usually irreversible, and the patient is left with a permanent disability.

The majority of POVL cases that occur with prone spinal surgery are due to posterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (PION). PION is directly related to the ocular perfusion pressure (OPP), which is estimated as the difference between mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and intraocular pressure (IOP). Autoregulation is believed to maintain a constant perfusion to the optic nerve despite fluctuations in the perfusion pressure.

However, there is a knowledge gap in the physiological changes of IOP during prone surgery. IOP is a highly dynamic parameter, and the most widely used method to measure it is using a handheld tonometer. The main limitation of this technique is the isolated nature of its measurements, as it can only be taken at regular intervals, and may not reflect the full range of IOP changes. Studies on IOP during prone position in the current literature have all used this technique. 1-5 Hence subtle changes of IOP can be undetected, as interval measurements cannot reflect short-term variations that occur within seconds or minutes. Furthermore, most of the studies are performed on animals or healthy volunteers 5,6 , which further limit the interpretation of their results. For the few studies performed on anaesthetised patients undergoing spinal surgeries, the duration of surgery is short or mixed, so the critical time point may not have been studied. The American Society of Anesthesiologists Postoperative Visual Loss Registry suggests that an anaesthetic duration of greater than 6 hours is more correlated with POVL.

Using state of the art technology Over the past five years, advances in technology have led to the development of devices that allow 24 hour continuous IOP monitoring. The new system makes use of microelectromechanical systems, nanotechnology, and telemetry to allow continuous monitoring. A disposable contact lens sensor, first proposed by Leonardi et al. 8 , is now commercially available (SENSIMED Triggerfish; Sensimed AG, Lausanne, Switzerland). This technology can acquire data points over a 24 hour period corresponding to 30 seconds of continuous measurements. It measures changes in the ocular dimensions at the corneoscleral junction, which corresponds to changes to IOP and volume. The microprocessor within the lens transmits data to an external antenna, and the profiles can be stored in a portable recorder. 9 Although this sensor does not measure IOP directly, it gives measurements with a composite of IOP and volume changes, and it is most valuable in documenting relative changes of IOP-related events and their timing. It is also well tolerated in real life patients, and have been used to document IOP changes in patients with glaucoma and thyroid eye disease. 9-11 This is the only non-invasive temporary continuous monitoring in the system that can be used in human beings. This new technology is therefore ideal in detecting subtle changes in IOP pattern in prone spinal surgery. It will provide a continuous monitoring which can be correlated with the patient's level of anaesthesia, arterial pressure fluctuations and volume status, and can contribute to improved understanding of IOP changes during prone spinal surgery, which may in turn bridge the knowledge gap of the causes of POVL.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

10

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Hong Kong
      • Hong Kong, Hong Kong
        • Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 80 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Signed informed consent
  • Age 18 to 80 years inclusive
  • No pre-existing eye pathology (excluding refractive error), patients with glaucoma, history of eye injury or ophthalmic surgery
  • No known allergy to contact lens material
  • Patients undergoing anterior cervical spine surgery and prone spine surgery for duration of 3 hours or longer

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unable to comply with follow up or give informed consent
  • Cannot tolerate wearing contact lens
  • Has active eye infection

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Contact lens sensor
Patient will continue to wear the contact lens postoperatively for a total of 24 hours or until the patient cannot tolerate the contact lens. After removal of the contact lens sensor, the recorded profiles will be collected and visualized graphically on a computer interface.
Device: Contact lens sensor
Patient will continue to wear the contact lens postoperatively for a total of 24 hours or until the patient cannot tolerate the contact lens. After removal of the contact lens sensor, the recorded profiles will be collected and visualized graphically on a computer interface.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Report the physiological changes of IOP patterns during prone spinal surgery
Time Frame: 1 year
The outcome measure will be to report the physiological changes of IOP patterns during prone spinal surgery.
1 year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Correlate any intraoperative risk factors that may cause IOP fluctuations
Time Frame: 1 year
To correlate any intraoperative risk factors that may cause IOP fluctuations
1 year
Documentation of IOP changes after the surgery until the contact lens sensor is removed
Time Frame: 1 year
Documentation of IOP changes after the surgery until the contact lens sensor is removed
1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

The University of Hong Kong

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

May 9, 2016

Primary Completion (Actual)

May 9, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

May 9, 2017

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 27, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 27, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

October 3, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 6, 2020

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 5, 2020

Last Verified

May 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • UW 16-207

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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