Endoscope-assisted microsurgical resection of epidermoid tumors of the cerebellopontine angle

2004 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry W. S. Schroeder ◽  
Joachim Oertel ◽  
Michael R. Gaab

Object. Epidermoid tumors located in the cerebellopontine angle (CPA) are challenging lesions because they grow along the subarachnoid spaces around delicate neurovascular structures and often extend into the middle cranial fossa. The purpose of this study was to determine the value of endoscopic assistance in the microsurgical resection of these lesions, in which total removal is the therapy of choice. Methods. Eight patients harboring an epidermoid tumor of the CPA were treated using an endoscope-assisted microsurgical technique. A retrosigmoid suboccipital approach was used in five patients and a pterional transsylvian approach was chosen in the other three. In four patients the lesion was resected microsurgically and the endoscope was used repeatedly to verify complete tumor removal, whereas most of the tumor mass was removed with the aid of an operating microscope in the other four. Tumor parts extending into other cranial compartments that were not visible through the microscope were removed under endoscopic view by using rigid rod-lens scopes with 30 and 70° angles of view. All epidermoids were completely evacuated and the membranes were widely resected. Large tumors occupying both the middle and posterior cranial fossa were removed through a single small opening without enlarging the craniotomy. Permanent hearing loss and permanent hypacusis were observed in one patient each. One patient with facial and one with abducent nerve palsy recovered within 6 and 4 months, respectively. A transient weakness of the chewing muscles was encountered in one patient. Postoperative magnetic resonance imaging revealed no residual tumor in any patient. To date no recurrences have been observed (follow up range 12–98 months). Conclusions. The endoscope-assisted microsurgical technique enables safe removal even when tumor parts are not visible in a straight line. Tumor extensions into adjacent cranial compartments can be removed with the same approach without retracting neurovascular structures or enlarging the craniotomy.

1975 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 608-613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Isamat ◽  
Federico Bartumeus ◽  
Antonio M. Miranda ◽  
Jaime Prat ◽  
Luis C. Pons

✓ Three cases of neurinomas of the facial nerve are reported. Two of them originated from the labyrinthine portion of the nerve and the other from the vertical portion. Neurinomas of the first part of the facial nerve can be suspected preoperatively since they seem to give rise to specific clinical and radiological manifestations that can be distinguished from tumors of other portions of the nerve, the petrous bone area, or the cerebellopontine angle. The reported cases of neurinomas of the facial nerve are reviewed and analyzed.


1983 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 590-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernardo Fraioli ◽  
Luigi Ferrante ◽  
Paolo Celli

✓ From a series of 207 patients with pituitary adenoma operated on by microsurgical technique from 1973 to February, 1982, the cases of nine young people whose symptoms had appeared between the ages of 11 and 15 years are presented. The most important data are that all the children were pubertal and that in seven the tumor was, or later became, invasive. By contrast, the tumor was enclosed in eight of nine other patients whose symptoms manifested between the ages of 16 and 20 years, and in 152 of the remaining 189 patients whose symptoms appeared after the age of 20 years. Considering the gravity of the disease treated, the results in this series may be termed encouraging. The treatment was multidisciplinary: starting with surgery, followed by radiotherapy, endocrine replacement therapy, and, in adenomas secreting prolactin and/or growth hormone, medical therapy with bromocriptine. The divergence between authors on the subject of childhood adenomas, especially as to whether they are more often invasive or enclosed, could be overcome, at least in part, if the term “pediatric age” were unequivocally defined and if there were an agreed distinction between puberty and childhood on the one hand and puberty and adolescence on the other.


1999 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenji Ohata ◽  
Toshihiro Takami ◽  
Alaa El-Naggar ◽  
Michiharu Morino ◽  
Akimasa Nishio ◽  
...  

✓ The treatment of spinal intramedullary arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) with a diffuse-type nidus that contains a neural element poses different challenges compared with a glomus-type nidus. The surgical elimination of such lesions involves the risk of spinal cord ischemia that results from coagulation of the feeding artery that, at the same time, supplies cord parenchyma. However, based on evaluation of the risks involved in performing embolization, together with the frequent occurrence of reperfusion, which necessitates frequent reembolization, the authors consider surgery to be a one-stage solution to a disease that otherwise has a very poor prognosis. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging revealed diffuse-type intramedullary AVMs in the cervical spinal cords of three patients who subsequently underwent surgery via the posterior approach. The AVM was supplied by the anterior spinal artery in one case and by both the anterior and posterior spinal arteries in the other two cases. In all three cases, a posterior median myelotomy was performed up to the vicinity of the anterior median fissure that divided the spinal cord together with the nidus, and the feeding artery was coagulated and severed at its origin from the anterior spinal artery. In the two cases in which the posterior spinal artery fed the AVM, the feeding artery was coagulated on the dorsal surface of the spinal cord. Neurological outcome improved in one patient and deteriorated slightly to mildly in the other two patients. Postoperative angiography demonstrated complete disappearance of the AVM in all cases. Because of the extremely poor prognosis of patients with spinal intramedullary AVMs, this surgical technique for the treatment of diffuse-type AVMs provides acceptable operative outcome. Surgical intervention should be considered when managing a patient with a diffuse-type intramedullary AVM in the cervical spinal cord.


1971 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Lende ◽  
Wolff M. Kirsch ◽  
Ralph Druckman

✓ Cortical removals which included precentral and postcentral facial representations resulted in relief of facial pain in two patients. Because of known failures following only postcentral (SmI) ablations, these operations were designed to eliminate also the cutaneous afferent projection to the precentral gyrus (MsI) and the second somatic sensory area (SmII). In one case burning pain developed after a stroke involving the brain stem and was not improved by total fifth nerve section; prompt relief followed corticectomy and lasted until death from heart disease 20 months later. In the other case persistent steady pain that developed after fifth rhizotomy for trigeminal neuralgia proved refractory to frontal lobotomy; relief after corticectomy was immediate and has lasted 14 months. Cortical localization was established by stimulation under local anesthesia. Each removal extended up to the border of the arm representation and down to the upper border of the insula. Such a resection necessarily included SmII, and in one case responses presumably from SmII were obtained before removal. The suggestions of Biemond (1956) and Poggio and Mountcastle (1960) that SmII might be concerned with pain sensibility may be pertinent in these cases.


1979 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 870-871 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Anne Hayman ◽  
Alfonso E. Aldama-Luebbert ◽  
Robert A. Evans

✓ A large air-filled intracranial extradural diverticulum of the frontal sinus mucosa was removed from the anterior cranial fossa of a 47-year-old man 2 years after fracture of the posterior sinus wall during craniotomy.


1977 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiroshi Matsumura ◽  
Yasumasa Makita ◽  
Kuniyuki Someda ◽  
Akinori Kondo

✓ We have operated on 12 of 14 cases of arteriovenous malformation (AVM) in the posterior fossa since 1968, with one death. The lesions were in the cerebellum in 10 cases (three anteromedial, one central, three lateral, and three posteromedial), and in the cerebellopontine angle in two; in two cases the lesions were directly related to the brain stem. The AVM's in the anterior part of the cerebellum were operated on through a transtentorial occipital approach.


1971 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jans Muller ◽  
John Mealey

✓ A solid, extrinsic hemangiopericytoma of the cerebellopontine angle was studied histologically and by means of tissue culture. The explanted tumor cells formed classic meningiomatous whorls indicative of the meningeal derivation of this neoplasm. Whorls were entirely absent in the histological preparations, however. The cases reported under the diagnosis of intracranial hemangiopericytoma and angioblastic meningioma have been reviewed; no valid histological distinction between these two types could be made.


1995 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric R. Trumble ◽  
J. Paul Muizelaar ◽  
John S. Myseros ◽  
Sung C. Choi ◽  
Brian B. Warren

✓ The use of colloid agents to achieve hypervolemia in the prevention and treatment of postsubarachnoid hemorrhage (post-SAH) vasospasm is included in the standard of care at many institutions. Risk profiles are necessary to ensure appropriate use of these agents. In a series of 85 patients with recent aneurysmal SAH, 26 developed clinical symptoms of vasospasm. Fourteen of the 26 were treated with hetastarch for volume expansion while the other 12 received plasma protein fraction (PPF). Clinically significant bleeding pathologies were noted in six patients who received hetastarch as a continuous intravenous infusion. Hetastarch increased partial thromboplastin time from a mean of 23.9 seconds to a mean of 33.1 seconds (p < 0.001) in all patients who received infusions of this agent, while no effect was noted in the 12 patients who received PPF infusions. No other coagulation parameters were altered. This study shows an increase in coagulopathy with the use of hetastarch as compared with the use of PPF for the treatment of postaneurysmal vasospasm.


1990 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 763-766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiyohiro Houkin ◽  
Ingrid L. Kwee ◽  
Tsutomu Nakada

✓ Serial proton (1H) and phosphorus-31 (31P) magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy of cerebral infarction was performed in rats to assess the sensitivity of these techniques for use in clinical cerebral infarction. In this experimental chronic infarction model, 31P spectroscopy tended to return to a “normal” pattern within 24 hours after induction of infarction in spite of pathologically proven completed infarction and, therefore, appeared not to be sensitive enough for clinical application. On the other hand, proton spectroscopy invariably showed persistent high lactate levels and was capable of distinguishing completed infarction from reperfused recovered brain. Persistent high lactate levels appear to be a good MR spectroscopic indicator of completed infarction.


1973 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 581-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Keane

✓ Two patients admitted as cerebral trauma cases following single-car automobile accidents were found to have previously-unsuspected, surgically-treatable neurological diseases that undoubtedly caused the accidents. A left posterior communicating artery aneurysm was clipped in one patient and a right frontal lobe abscess aspirated in the other, with excellent results in both patients.


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