New Frontiers in Modern Neurosurgery

  For many patients, achieving health requires the trauma and risk of surgery to eliminate disease, but some procedures are prohibitively invasive and risky. Therefore, one of the noble goals that surgeons strive for is to treat disease surgically with the least possible trauma and risk. It is the pursuit of generations of neurosurgeons that has facilitated the development of neurosurgery into micro-neurosurgery. Today, neurosurgery has further entered a new era of integration of modern high technology applications, such as navigation and intraoperative nuclear magnetism, among which neuroendoscopic techniques are one of the most important areas for minimizing surgical trauma and effectively treating diseases.  Neuroendoscopic techniques have been proven to play a very important role in the field of neurosurgery. Reviewing thousands of neuroendoscopic surgeries in recent years, we can clearly see that its biggest advantage is that it can reveal the field more clearly, reduce the dead angle of the field, and avoid the interference and destruction of some normal structures.  Endoscopic surgery of skull base with extensive lesions can be performed by endoscopic resection of pituitary tumor through nasal pterygoid sinus, which can enlarge the exposure and increase the scope of tumor resection under direct vision on the basis of maintaining the normal structure, so that the tumor can be resected more thoroughly and the function of pituitary gland can be protected to the maximum. Patients do not need to fill the nasal cavity after surgery, and the postoperative reaction is mild, so they can have a good postoperative comfort. Due to the improved surgical quality, the hospitalization time is greatly shortened and patients can be discharged one day after surgery, which significantly reduces the hospitalization cost. Due to the mild operation, there is no adverse effect on patients who have undergone cosmetic surgery such as rhinoplasty. Some foreign scholars have compared endoscopic transphenoidal sinus surgery for pituitary tumors with traditional surgical methods and found that the complications of the procedure are significantly reduced.  Another distinct advantage of endoscopic transphenoidal sinus surgery over conventional microsurgery for saddle lesions is that this technique can be extended to treat lesions in other surrounding areas, including the midline anterior cranial fossa, the saddle nodes, the slope, the posterior cranial fossa, and the optic nerve and cavernous sinus. A typical example of this is chordoma, especially tumors that grow in the midline and protrude forward, which can be removed endoscopically via a nasal or transoral approach with as little surgical damage as possible and with far better resection than conventional surgery. We have treated more than 100 cases of complex skull base chordoma with neuroendoscopic approaches, including endoscopic transnasal, endoscopic transoral, endoscopic transnasal combined with microscopic craniotomy, and endoscopic transnasal combined with transoral. These approaches have significantly improved the quality of postoperative survival and prolonged the survival of patients by removing lesions that are difficult to remove by conventional means.  We have applied neuroendoscopy to treat traumatic, spontaneous, and postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leaks, making use of endoscopic near-target irradiation and wide-angle high-resolution features to achieve effective treatment of some recalcitrant cerebrospinal fluid leaks. The combination of neuroendoscopic technique and microscope can make the resection of some widespread skull base tumors more complete and less damage, especially cholesteatoma tumors.  Endoscopic surgery of ventriculocerebral pool can almost replace the traditional surgery for hydrocephalus and cystic lesions in ventriculocerebral pool, and the application of neuroendoscopic surgery can almost replace the traditional surgery. At present, the preferred surgery for obstructive hydrocephalus and partial traffic hydrocephalus is neuroendoscopic tricorreteral fundoplication, which has saved a large number of patients from the inconvenience of long-term buried ventriculoperitoneal shunts and the pain caused by the complications of shunts. The treatment of cysts, parasites and some intracerebroventricular tumors in the ventricular brain pool is also a good place for neuroendoscopic techniques. Many scholars in China have accumulated a large number of cases in these areas and already have a wealth of clinical experience.  Third, spinal endoscopic surgery in China is still in the initial stage Spinal endoscopic surgery in China is late, currently in the initial stage. However, foreign experience has confirmed that in the treatment of intervertebral disc disease, spinal diseases and some tumors in the spinal canal, its future prospects are very broad.  Fourth, the successful application of neuroendoscopy to promote the renewal of people’s concepts The popularity of neuroendoscopic technology is conducive to the development of neurosurgery. At present, there are more than one kind of surgery done independently with neuroendoscopy, and there are many surgeries done jointly with various conventional and modern equipment and instruments. Due to the application of endoscopy, some diseases that were not known in the past can have a whole new concept and some procedures that could not be done with direct vision in the past can now be done. This further suggests that the use of neuroendoscopic techniques has expanded the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to neurosurgery.  The popularity of neuroendoscopy relies on a change of mindset. Many novelties are hampered by traditional concepts. At the beginning of clinical application, neuroendoscopic technology also faced many limitations of traditional thinking. After recent years of efforts, especially after the accumulation of several thousand cases of neuroendoscopic surgery in China, involving more than one type of disease, and the practical application of a variety of operating techniques, people’s concepts are being updated. We believe that the practical value and future prospect of this modern neurosurgical technique for the benefit of patients will be further recognized by the majority of colleagues and accepted by the majority of patients.