Minimally invasive, but not at the cost of maximally effective, in the surgical removal of brainstem cavernous malformations

摘要

In the current issue of WORLD NEUROSURGERY, Mai et al. review a series of 22 patients with 26 brainstem cavernous malformations. At an average of 26.6 months of follow-up, 14 patients had a modified Rankin score (mRS) of 0 or 1, and an additional 3 patients had a mRS of 2. A final mRS of 3 or 4 was achieved in 6 patients. Two patients had residual lesions but elected not to undergo additional surgery. The surgical approaches involved suboccipital craniotomy (n = 6), orbitozygo-matic craniotomy (n = 5), transpetrosal approach (n = 4), combined transtemporal/transpetrosal (n = 2), lateral supracer-ebellar approach [n = 2), occipital transtentorial (n = 1), trans-maxillary/transclival (n = 1), retrosigmoid (n = 1), presigmoid/ transsigmoid (n = 1), subtemporal/infratentorial {n = 1), and supracerebellar/transtentorial (n = 1). The article is concise and well-written with many salient points.