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.
MATERIAL AND 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.
CONCLUSION: 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.