Journal of neurosurgical sciences最新文献

Introduction: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a modern neuromodulation technique extensively proven to be an effective modality for treatment of chronic neuropathic pain. It has been mainly studied for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS) and recent data almost uniformly establishes its statistically significant positive therapeutic results. It has also been compared with other available treatment modalities across various studies. However, long term data on maintenance of its efficacious potential remains less explored. Few studies have reported data on long follow-up times (>= 12 months) and have compared its efficacy with other treatment options for chronic pain, respectively. Our study pools and analyzes the available data and compares SCS with other treatment options. It also analyzes the efficacy of SCS in long term management of patients with chronic pain.

Evidence acquisition: We reviewed all the data available on MEDLINE, Embase and Cochrane CENTRAL using a search strategy designed to fit our pre-set inclusion and exclusion criteria. Both single-arm and double-arm studies were included. The primary outcome was defined as decrease of visual analogue scale (VAS) by >50% at 6, 12 and/or 24 months after SCS.

Evidence synthesis: According to the pooled data of double-arm studies, SCS has unanimously proven its superiority over other treatment options at 6 months follow-up; however it fails to prove statistically significant difference in results at longer treatment intervals. Dorsal root ganglion stimulation, a relatively recent technique with the same underlying physiologic mechanisms as SCS, showed far more promising results than SCS. Single-arm studies show around 70% patients experiencing greater than 50% reduction in their VAS scores at 6 and 12 months.

Conclusions: SCS is a viable option for management of chronic neuropathic pain secondary to FBSS and CRPS. However, data available for its long term efficacy remains scarce and show no further statistically significant results.

Background: Postoperative stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and hypofractionated stereotactic radiotherapy (hFSRT) to tumor cavities is emerging as a new standard of care after resection of brain metastases. Both Gamma Knife (GK) and CyberKnife (CK) are modalities commonly used for stereotactic radiotherapy, but fractional schemes are not consistent. The objective of this study was to evaluate outcomes in patients receiving postoperative stereotactic radiotherapy of resected brain metastases (BM) using different fractionation schedules and modalities in two large centers.

Methods: Patients with newly diagnosed BM who underwent postoperative SRS or hFSRT with either GK or CK at two large cancer centers were retrospectively evaluated. We analyzed local control (LC), regional control (RC) and overall survival (OS).

Results: From April 14^th to May 18^th, 2020, 79 patients with 81 resection cavities were treated. Forty-seven patients (59.5%) received GK and 32 patients (40.5%) received CK treatment. Fifty-four cavities (66.7%) were treated with hFSRT and 27 (33.3%) with SRS. The most common hFSRT and SRS scheme was 3x10 Gy and 1x16 Gy, respectively. Median OS was 11.7 months with survival rates of 44.7% at 1 year and 18.5% at 2 years. LC was 83.3% after 1 year. Median time to regional progression was 12.0 months with RC rates of 61.1% at 6 months and 41.0% at 12 months. There was no difference in OS, LC or RC between GK and CK treatments or SRS and hFSRT.

Conclusions: Both SRS and hFSRT provide high local control rates in resected BM regardless of the applied modality.

Background: Pituitary adenomas and craniopharyngiomas are the most common lesions of the sellar region. These tumors are responsible for invasion or compression of crucial neurovascular structures. The involvement of the pituitary stalk warrants high rates of both pre- and post- operative diabetes insipidus. The aim of our study was to assess the accuracy of machine learning analysis from preoperative MRI of pituitary adenomas and craniopharyngiomas for the prediction of DI occurrence.

Methods: All patients underwent MRI exams either on a 1.5- or 3-T MR scanner from two Institutions, including coronal T2-weighted (T2-w) and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (CE T1-w) Turbo Spin Echo sequences. Feature selection was carried out as a multi-step process, with a threshold of 0.75 to identify robust features. Further feature selection steps included filtering based on feature variance (threshold >0.01) and pairwise correlation (threshold <0.80). A Bayesian Network model was trained with 10-fold cross validation employing SMOTE to balance classes exclusively within the training folds.

Results: Thirty patients were included in this study. In total 2394 features were extracted and 1791 (75%) resulted stable after ICC analysis. The number of variant features was 1351 and of non-colinear features was 125. Finally, 10 features were selected by oneR ranking. The Bayesian Network model showed an accuracy of 63% with a precision of 77% for DI prediction (0.68 area under the precision-recall curve).

Conclusions: We assessed the accuracy of machine learning analysis of texture-derived parameters from preoperative MRI of pituitary adenomas and craniopharyngiomas for the prediction of DI occurrence.

Background: This paper reports the results of the treatment of our first 200 cases of lumbar disc herniation and foraminal stenosis using full-endoscopic transforaminal lumbar discectomy (FETLD). We analyzed outcomes and radiological parameters to overcome failure and inappropriate indications and also highlighted the red flags for surgeons coming to this field as well as the pathways to success.

Methods: Data on endoscopic procedures were retrospectively analyzed between October 2018 and March 2023. We abstracted sex, age, leg pain by NPRS, postoperative satisfaction according to the MacNaab score, postoperative surgical complications/adverse events (≤30 days), and history of any previous surgery. Furthermore, we measured different radiological parameters to determine the grade of stenosis or discopathy.

Results: Once the learning curve was completed, patients' satisfaction increased to 94%, with only a small percentage (6%) of patients unsatisfied 30 days after the operation. Perioperatively, 33.5% of the patients experienced mild to moderate transitory paresthesia. Univariate analysis showed a tendency toward a higher risk of failure in those patients with degenerative listhesis (odds ratio [OR] 4.8, 95% CI 0.97-23.9, P=0.055) as well as those with severely degenerated discs (OR 8.7, 95% CI 0.96-79.4, P=0.054). Conversely, the chances of failure seemed to be lower in patients with severe foraminal stenosis.

Conclusions: FETLD proved its efficacy in treating several degenerative spine conditions or was useful for avoiding previous scarring in patients already operated on to the same extent. Therefore, FETLD can be safely used in patients with comorbidities, the elderly, and when the invasiveness of an open technique is not suitable.

Background: Surpass Evolve Flow Diverter (SE-FD; Stryker Neurovascular, Kalamazoo, MI, USA) was launched in 2019 as a new generation FD of Surpass Streamline. The aim of this study was to report the effectiveness and safety of SE-FD insertion for unruptured intracranial aneurysm at one-year follow-up.

Methods: Between November 2019 and October 2021, a total of 106 patients with 108 aneurysms were treated with FD in single institution. Of these, SE-FD insertion was performed in 40 patients with 41 aneurysms. At one-year follow-up, clinical and angiographic outcomes were retrospectively evaluated from electronic medical record and aneurysm database.

Results: There were 12 male and 28 female patients (mean age 59.1 years, 95% CI: 55.3-62.9). Fusiform aneurysm dissection was 46.3% (19/41). Mean maximum aneurysm diameter was 13.2 mm (SD 5.53), and 34.1% (14/41) of aneurysms were 15 mm or bigger. Among 41 aneurysms, complex aneurysm (recurred, thrombosed, or branch artery-incorporated) was accounted for 41.5% (17/41). All procedures were successfully conducted with 7.3% (3/41) of procedure-related complications. At one-year follow-up (N.=40), neurologic morbidity was noted in 2 cases (5.0%; both with modified Rankin Scale [mRS] 1) without any mortality. At one-year follow-up (N.=41), radiologic outcomes were adequate occlusion in 33 (80.5%) and complete occlusion in 29 (70.7%). There was no retreatment in our cohort.

Conclusions: Surpass Evolve Flow Diverter seemed to be safe and effective for the treatment of dissecting/fusiform or complex aneurysms at one-year follow-up. However, further study is needed to evaluate long term results.

Background: Treatment-related changes still represent a diagnostic challenge in the management of patients with suspect of recurrent glioblastoma. The specificity of conventional MRI in detecting recurrence remains limited. Brain PET imaging provides information on tumor metabolism and can contribute to improving the diagnostic accuracy of cerebral neoplasms. We performed a retrospective analysis to evaluate the clinical value of O-(2-¹⁸F-fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (¹⁸F-FET) PET in the diagnosis of glioblastoma recurrence.

Methods: A retrospective analysis on patients considered suitable for salvage surgery for recurrence glioblastoma was performed. ¹⁸F-FET-PET was performed to investigate gadolinium enhancement suspected for recurrence. Static and kinetic ¹⁸F-FET parameters were analyzed and related to O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) status.

Results: Forty-two of the 51 patients who underwent ¹⁸F-FET-PET were re-operated. In each case, neuropathological diagnosis of tumor recurrence was confirmed. pMGMT hypermethylation was detected in 21 patients. Mean tumor-to-brain ratios (TBR) max was 3.87 (range 2.6-6.0). Static and kinetic ¹⁸F-FET parameters were similar according to MGMT status.

Conclusions: ¹⁸FET-PET can be a reliable tool to improve the selection of patients suitable for salvage surgery for glioblastoma recurrence.

Background: Primary intradural extramedullary (IDEM) lesions are rare, with an incidence of about 1/100,000 person-years. The aim of this study was to investigate their demographic, clinical, imaging, management, histopathological and outcome parameters. Another objective was to evaluate the various predicting factors leading to long-term favorable outcomes, thereby answering the controversial question: when to operate?

Methods: This study observed 212 patients of primary IDEM lesions and followed-up for a mean of 53.80 months. The patient's outcome using McCormick grade at follow-up was correlated with age, sex, duration of symptoms, preoperative McCormick grade, tumor location and extent, extradural spread, extent of excision, vascularity, WHO grade and histopathological tumor type.

Results: Benign nerve sheath tumors were the commonest lesions (47.17% schwannoma, 4.72% Neurofibroma), followed in incidence by meningioma (19.34%). There was predominance of males (57.08%), except in meningiomas (male: female ratio 1:2.15). Pain was the commonest initial symptom (51.88%). Limb weakness was the most common presenting complaint (88.68%). Gross total excision was achieved in 81.60% of cases and 70.75% of patients improved following surgery. The significant factors predicting favorable outcome included preoperative McCormick grade (P=0.001), the vertical extent of the tumor (P=0.027), histopathological tumor type (P=0.023) and WHO grading (P=0.015); and extent of excision had an odds ratio of 1: 2.5.

Conclusions: Significant predictors of functional outcome following surgery in IDEM lesions included preoperative McCormick grade, extent of the tumor, tumor type, WHO grading and extent of resection. The authors recommend surgery with the intent of complete tumor excision, before the onset of substantial symptoms, for better outcome.