• Eun Suk Park, Eun Jung Lee, Jun Bum Park, Young Hyun Cho, Seok Ho Hong, Jeong Hoon Kim, and Chang Jin Kim.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Ulsan University Hospital, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Ulsan, Korea.
• World Neurosurg. 2016 Apr 1; 88: 552-562.

BackgroundDespite advances in skull base surgery, achieving effective surgical management of jugular foramen schwannomas (JFSs) that avoids postoperative cranial nerve (CN) deficits remains a challenge. Subtotal resection followed by radiosurgery (rather than radical resection) is increasingly being viewed as a better treatment strategy. Here, an institutional database was retrospectively analyzed for outcomes after surgical treatment of JFSs to evaluate the optimal strategy for managing JFSs.MethodsTwenty-two patients with JFSs were operated on by either radical resection (n = 13) or conservative resection plus radiosurgery (n = 9). These 2 different groups were compared in terms of early (≤4 weeks after surgery) and late postoperative functional outcome and oncologic control.ResultsNo deaths occurred in either group, but there were 3 surgery-related complications in the radical resection group. Postoperative CN deficits and additional procedures related to CN morbidity were generally higher in the radical resection group, but the differences were not statistically significant. The conservative surgery group showed a statistically significant improvement in the level of dysphagia and dysphagia-related functional state in the late postoperative period. There was 1 case of recurrence after radical resection over a mean follow-up period of 73 months. All tumors in the conservative surgery group were controlled over a mean period of 34 months.ConclusionsOur results suggest that conservative resection of JFSs via a familiar intracranial approach plus radiosurgery may be an effective surgical alternative for improving functional outcome with adequate oncologic control.Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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