[Transmastoidal resection of an endaural encephalocele--a case report]

There are transmastoid, transtemporal and combined approaches for surgical management of endaural encephaloceles. The advantages of a transmastoid approach are the exploration and option of surgical treatment of the middle ear cavity without craniotomy. Nevertheless there are recent studies preferring the transtemporal or combined approach because of the better survey.

We present a 27-year old male patient, who developed hearing loss and otorrhea of the right side. He underwent middle ear surgery associated with cholesteatoma three times before. On examination there was a smooth pulsatile mass taking origin in the roof and almost filling the external auditory canal. High-resolution CT and MRI scans of the petrous bone demonstrated a spherical soft tissue mass communicating with the middle cranial fossa. The encephalocele was exposed and resected through a transmastiodal approach. Behind the cele a relapsing cholesteatoma was found and resected in the same session. The laterobasilar defect was sealed with ear cartilage and a perichondrium flap.

There are three different surgical approaches to manage laterobasilar encephaloceles. Due to the history of a previous cholesteatoma we performed a transmastoidal approach. A transtemporal approach alone would have failed to notice the relapsing cholesteatoma and would have led to a greater trauma.