Endoscopy-assisted microsurgical total resection of craniopharyngioma in childhood.

摘要

Craniopharyngioma is a benign tumour that needs total resection to reduce the recurrence rate and consequently improve the quality of life for the affected children. As this tumour is closely related to the optic nerves, chiasm and hypothalamus, total removal cannot be achieved without difficulty. It has been reported that total resection could be achieved in up to 75% of the patients by microsurgical techniques. In this study we aimed to improve the total resection rate by adding endoscopy to the microsurgical instrumentation. This has improved the total resection rate by nearly 10%.