Do you still get lost in the grassland, desert, countryside, mountains or no man’s land today? With GPS, I won’t get lost.
Is it risky to operate when the tumor grows in the functional area in the brain? With neuro-navigation technology, we can minimize the complications of surgery. The term “navigation” is not new to us, as it is ubiquitous in today’s life, but it is probably the first time you have heard of the application of neuronavigation technology to perform surgery on intracranial lesions.
This is a newly developed minimally invasive neurosurgical technique. It is a cranial surgery performed under the guidance of a neuronavigation system, which can increase the rate of total lesion excision, reduce the rate of postoperative disability, and significantly improve patient prognosis.
Transnasal pituitary adenoma resection under the guidance of neuronavigation system: Today a patient with pituitary adenoma was to be operated on. I came to the ward early in the morning, put 5 navigation-specific marker patches on the patient’s face as usual, and then the nurse accompanied the patient to do a head CT before sending him to the operating room to lie flat on the operating bed and inputting all the patient’s imaging data into the electromagnetic navigation system.
I remember last Wednesday, I also did a pituitary adenoma, because I didn’t use the navigation system to guide me, the operation started extremely unpleasantly. I finally found and opened the saddle base and completed the surgery.
Today’s patient was a bit similar, but I was not afraid because I had a navigator. After I entered the operating room, I started to register each marker one by one and confirmed that the system error was 1.5mm. The postoperative review showed that the tumor was cut very cleanly.
Interestingly, I have never been so targeted in my previous pituitary adenoma surgery as I am today. During the whole surgery, I could see every step on the screen in real time, and I could accurately determine the specific location of the important structures around the pituitary adenoma such as the adjacent optic nerve, optic cross, internal carotid artery and sea surface sinus in 3D space, and I could actively avoid these important structures to prevent related injuries and complications. I truly appreciate that neuronavigation system-guided transsphenoidal pituitary adenoma resection can be minimally invasive, safe, and with low complications.
Neuroguidance-guided resection of tumors in functional brain areas: Surgery on neurological tumors growing in functional brain areas is very risky. We sometimes see patients walking into the ward and carrying them out of the hospital, and then either limping or being paralyzed at home after recovery.
Therefore, neurotumor resection in the functional brain area is a challenge to neurosurgeons. In addition to the high demands on the operating skills of the surgeon, the preoperative and intraoperative precise positioning is also very demanding, and the slightest deviation will bring permanent neurological damage.
The neuronavigation system can help neurosurgeons in the following two ways: (1) preoperatively, the workstation can be used to virtualize the surgical plan, identify and avoid important functional areas of the brain, select the best surgical approach, and develop a safer surgical plan; (2) intraoperatively, the workstation image can be used to precisely localize the lesion in three dimensions and guide the entire surgical process in real time, reducing surgical trauma, tumor residue, and postoperative complications. Since the application of neuronavigation technology to perform intracranial tumor surgery, we have operated on more than 40 cases of intracranial tumors including glioma, meningioma, pituitary tumor, etc., and the clinical efficacy is very obvious.