Microsurgical Treatment of Posterior Cranial Fossa Tumors Via Keyhole Approaches

Abstract

The neurosurgical keyhole operation which is a new concept developed recently, especially characterized by the supraorbital subfrontal eyebrow approach, has be widely applied for intracranial tumors and aneurysms [1–3]. However, big craniotomies with large incisions are still predominant in the surgical treatments of posterior cranial fossa lesions. There are few reports about modern keyhole techniques used in this field, although the retromastoid approach applied for decades in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, in a sense, may be considered as one minimally invasive keyhole approach. Based on the rationale of modern keyhole techniques, this approach has been developed for intracranial neoplasms. Here the therapeutic effects of various posterior fossa keyhole approaches tried in our preliminary study were analyzed retrospectively and reported in detail.