Video Discription |
Chih-Hsiang Liao, MD,1,2 Chun-Fu Lin, MD,3,4 Wei-Hsin Wang, MD,3 Jui-To Wang, MD,3,4
Shao-Ching Chen, MD,3,4 and Sanford P. C. Hsu, MD3,4
1Department of Neurosurgery, Neurological Institute, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung; 2Institute of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung; 3Division of General Neurosurgery, Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei; and 4School of Medicine, National Yang Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
A 39-year-old man, who had a history of spinal myxopapillary ependymoma with cerebrospinal seeding status post twice operations and radiation therapy, presented with aggravating headaches, diplopia, dysphagia, and unsteady gait for 2 weeks. The brain MRI revealed a parenchymal lesion at the left aspect of the pons, about 2.8 × 2.3 × 3.2 cm3. The patient underwent a pretemporal transcavernous transtentorial approach for tumor removal. The pathological report showed an anaplastic astrocytoma. In this approach, a wider surgical corridor was obtained by opening the Meckel’s cave and cutting the tentorium, via which a safe entry point into the pons could be determined with neuromonitoring. In the authors’ opinion, this approach is safe and effective in selected ventrolateral pontine gliomas.
**Intro music: "Daybreak" by Graeme Rosner |