Neurosurgery
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Endoscopes have been commonly used in transsphenoidal surgery to treat pituitary tumors, to compensate for the narrow surgical field. Although many navigation systems have been introduced for neurosurgical procedures, there have been few reports of navigation systems for endoscopic operations. This report presents our recently developed, endoscopic, augmented reality (AR) navigation system. ⋯ The endoscopic AR navigation system allows surgeons to perform accurate, safe, endoscope-assisted operations to treat pituitary tumors; it is particularly useful for reoperations, in which midline landmarks may be absent. We consider the AR navigation system to be a promising tool for safe, minimally invasive, endonasal, transsphenoidal surgery to treat pituitary tumors.
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Comparative Study
Endovascular treatment for poorest-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage in the acute stage: has the outcome been improved?
Patients with poor-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) have been considered good candidates for endovascular treatment. The results of treatment of Grade V SAH, the poorest grade, however, have not been fully elucidated. ⋯ Endovascular treatment of the 22 World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies Grade V SAH patients improved their survival rate but not their favorable outcome rate in comparison with conservative treatment. Further accumulation of clinical data is essential to determine whether endovascular treatment can improve the functional outcome of those with GCS scores of 6 and whether there is no role for endovascular treatment in those with GCS scores of 4 or 5.
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To determine the incidence of long-term hardware-related complications of deep brain stimulation (DBS). ⋯ Long-term follow-up reveals that hardware-related complications occur in a significant number of patients. Factors that lead to such complications must be identified and addressed to maximize the important benefits of DBS therapy.
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Embolization before surgical resection of tumors has been demonstrated to reduce intraoperative blood loss, but the optimal time that should elapse between embolization and tumor resection has not been established. We evaluated whether immediate surgical resection (< or =24 h) after embolization or delayed surgical resection (>24 h) was more effective in minimizing intraoperative blood loss. ⋯ Contrary to previous studies that emphasized a need for tumor removal immediately after embolization, to prevent revascularization, surgical resection of meningiomas should be delayed more than 24 hours after embolization, because there is less intraoperative blood loss.
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Hypertensive hypervolemic therapy for vasospasm is widely practiced. It is not clear, however, whether the use of hypertension and hypervolemia as a treatment for vasospasm risks hemorrhage from an unsecured, unruptured aneurysm. ⋯ Hypertension and hypervolemia do not seem to increase the risk of hemorrhage from unsecured, unruptured aneurysms in the acute setting or in their short-term natural history.