Objectives: The frequency of endoscopic skull base surgery in pediatric patients is increasing. This study’s aim is to systematically review the literature for endoscopic skull base surgery outcomes in children/adolescents ages 0-18 years.
Design: A systematic review of the literature was performed in PubMed and SCOPUS databases querying studies from 2000-2020 using PRISMA guidelines. Final inclusion criteria included: case series with 10+ patients with pediatric patients age ≤18 years, endoscopic or endoscopic-assisted skull base surgery, and outcomes reported.
Setting: Tertiary care medical center
Participants: Children/adolescents ages 0-18 years who underwent endoscopic skull base surgery
Main Outcome Measures: Patient demographics, pathology, reconstructive technique, intra-operative findings, intra-operative and post-operative surgical complications.
Results: Systematic literature search yielded 287 publications. Of these, 12 studies discussing a total of 399 patients age 0-18 years met inclusion criteria for final analysis. 7 of 12 studies discussed a single pathology. The most common pathology was a skull base defect causing CSF leak. The majority of skull base repairs were made with free tissue grafts. The most common post-operative complication was CSF leak (n=40). Twelve cases of meningitis occurred post-operatively with two of these episodes resulting in death.
Conclusions: Endoscopic skull base surgery has been performed recently in the pediatric population in a variety of disease states. Inconsistent individual-level data and reporting standards are present in existing studies posing challenges for comparative analysis. Standardized reporting will aid future reviews and meta-analysis for rare skull base pathology.
