Advances in the treatment of auditory nerve sheath tumors

  With the advancement of technology, surgical procedures are gradually developing in the direction of minimally invasive and lock-hole. Minimally invasive surgery does not only refer to small incisions alone, it should be a philosophy: to complete the surgery with minimal trauma. Therefore, minimizing surgical trauma is the basic principle of minimally invasive surgery, while preventing surgery-related complications is also a basic requirement of minimally invasive surgery. “Lockhole surgery also does not mean that the size of the craniotomy is the same as the lockhole, but that the individualized craniotomy has the function of a key to access a specific intracranial space and obtain the best therapeutic effect with minimal trauma rather, a direct and precise pathway is chosen to reach the lesion as non-invasively as possible, the useless craniotomy part of the conventional surgical access is dispensed with, the lesion-free zone is not exposed, and the range of intracranial field of view should be expanded with The intracranial field of view should be expanded with increasing depth.  Auditory neuroma is one of the three most common benign intracranial tumors. Once diagnosed, surgical treatment is the mainstay. In the past, the traditional surgical incision for auditory neuroma was more than 10 cm in length, which was very traumatic and unsightly. It is often necessary to remove part of the cerebellum or forcibly pull open the cerebellum to enter the operation area to reveal the tumor, which will certainly cause serious damage to the cerebellum. It is also prone to complications such as infection and cerebrospinal fluid leakage.  With the advancement of minimally invasive microscopic techniques, we use the posterior locking foramen approach to the inferior occipital sinus to remove the auditory neuroma, with the incision completely within the hair traces and only 5 cm in length, and the bone window located at the intersection of the transverse and ethmoid sinuses, which requires less than 3 cm in diameter. The modern minimally invasive technique is to release the cerebrospinal fluid by opening the occipital pool, reduce the tension of the posterior cranial fossa, and enter the operative area through the natural gap of the cerebellar rim after the cerebellum collapses, which can remove the tumor without damaging the cerebellum. And with intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring, it is not difficult to completely resect the tumor and complete the anatomical protection of the facial nerve. Preservation of hearing during auditory neuroma surgery has become a new goal to be pursued in modern minimally invasive neurosurgery. For larger tumors, especially those involving the apical part of the rock, the ventral part of the brainstem and the supratentorial part of the cerebellum, conventional surgery is likely to leave a dead space, and with the aid of ventriculoscopy under minimally invasive surgery, deep microscopic anatomical structures that are not in the linear field of the microscope can be clearly seen.  The specific advantages of inferior occipital sinus posterior locking foramen approach for resection of auditory neuroma are: 1. Small craniotomy trauma and less blood loss: skin incision and bone window area are significantly reduced, avoiding the invalid craniotomy part. Due to the small muscle incision, the blood loss in the process of opening and closing the skull is greatly reduced, and blood transfusion is generally not needed.  2.Shorten the operation time: the time for opening and closing the skull is less than half of the conventional operation time.  3.Minimal damage to brain tissue and fast recovery after surgery.  4.Less complications.  5.The hospitalization time is significantly shortened and the hospitalization cost is reduced.