Endoscopic-assisted neurosurgery: single-hospital initial experience

Abstract

Following recent technological advances, there has been a trend towards more minimally invasive techniques that aim at reducing surgical trauma to the patient. One example is endoscope-assisted neurosurgery in patients with various skull base pathologies. By improving the angle of visualization and degree of illumination, the size of the wound and degree of brain retraction can be minimized and henceforth surgical outcomes can be optimized. We would like to present 2 cases that were operated on in September 2012 in our centre with endoscope-assisted techniques. Through these cases, we hope to illustrate the benefits that neuro-endoscopic technique offers to the surgery in terms of better visualization of anatomy and lesions and completeness of tumor resection in hard-to-reach places, despite having smaller craniotomies.