Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
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Intracranial chondrosarcomas are primary cartilaginous neoplasms that represent 6% of all skull base tumors. Intracranial extraskeletal chondrosarcomas are more rare, often arising from the meninges at the falx, tentorium, or cerebral convexity. They are generally characterized as classical or mesenchymal, with the latter associated with worse outcomes. ⋯ All deaths occurred in patients with the mesenchymal subtype. Management of skull base chondrosarcomas is controversial but extraskeletal intracranial tumors can generally be managed by surgical resection alone. Treatment should be tailored to the biology of the tumor, with radiation therapy reserved for patients with the mesenchymal subtype.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Posterolateral lumbar fusion versus transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion for the treatment of degenerative lumbar scoliosis.
This study compares the safety and efficacy of posterolateral lumbar fusion (PLF) and transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) in the treatment of degenerative lumbar scoliosis (DLS). Forty DLS patients with Cobb angles of 20-60 degrees were randomized into either the PLF or TLIF treatment group, and were followed up for 2-5 years. Operating time, intraoperative blood loss, clinical outcomes, complications and imaging were compared between the two groups. ⋯ There were no significant differences in the recovery rates in the Cobb angle and the spinal coronal balance, function, self-image, or mental health scores. Although TLIF increases the surgical trauma and occurrence of complications, it helps to improve lumbar lordosis and sagittal balance and shows better clinical outcomes. For patients without significant loss of lumbar lordosis and with good spinal sagittal balance preoperatively, PLF is still an option.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of microsurgery and endovascular treatment on clinical outcome following poor-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Poor-grade (World Federation of Neurological Surgeons [WFNS] clinical grading scale grades IV and V) subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. However, the correlation between the timing, modality of intervention (clipping or coiling) and the clinical outcome is not clear. This study aims to examine this correlation. ⋯ This trend towards better clinical outcomes in the microsurgical group was not statistically significant. With an aggressive early treatment policy more than half of the poor-grade SAH patients demonstrated a good clinical outcome. Microsurgery and endovascular treatment, when selected primarily according to angiographic features, were equally likely to achieve good outcome.
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Parry Romberg Syndrome (PRS) is a rare condition of unknown cause and pathophysiology. It is characterized by progressive facial hemiatrophy, and neurological abnormalities are found in 20% of cases. ⋯ In previous published cases associated with facial pain, the most frequent diagnoses were migraine and trigeminal neuralgia. Our findings suggest that in this patient PRS-related persistent pain has peculiar features possibly attributed to the underlying musculoskeletal abnormalities.
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The use of both awake surgery and intraoperative MRI (iMRI) has been reported to optimize the maximal safe resection of gliomas. However, there has been little research into combining these two demanding procedures. We report our unique experience with, and methodology of, awake surgery in a movable iMRI system, and we quantitatively evaluate the contribution of the combination on the extent of resection (EOR) and functional outcome of patients with gliomas involving language areas. ⋯ Gross total resection was achieved in 18 patients (60.0%), and in seven of those patients (23.3%), the gross total resection could be attributed to iMRI. A total of 12 patients (40.0%) suffered from transient language deficits; however, only one (3.3%) patient developed a permanent deficit. This study demonstrates the potential utility of combining awake craniotomy with iMRI; it is safe and reliable to perform awake surgery using a movable iMRI.