Ischemic complications associated with resection of opercular glioma

Opercular glioma inferolateral to the hand/digit sensorimotor area can be resected safely using a neuronavigation system and functional brain mapping techniques. However, the surgery can still sometimes cause postoperative ischemic complications, the character of which remains unclear. The authors of this study investigated the occurrence of infarction associated with resection of opercular glioma and the arterial supply to this region.

The study involved 11 consecutive patients with gliomas located in the opercular region around the orofacial primary motor and somatosensory cortices but not involving either the hand/digit area or the insula, who had been treated in their department after 1997. Both pre- and postoperative diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was performed in the nine consecutive patients after 1998 to detect ischemic complications. All patients underwent open surgery for maximum tumor resection. Postoperative MR imaging identified infarction beneath the resection cavity in all patients. Permanent motor deficits associated with infarction involving the descending motor pathway developed in two patients. Cadaveric angiography showed that the distributing arteries to the corona radiata were the long insular arteries and/or medullary arteries from the opercular and cortical segments of the middle cerebral artery.

Subcortical resection around the upper limiting sulcus of the posterior region of the insula and wide resection in the anteroposterior and cephalocaudal directions of the opercular region were considered to be risk factors of the critical infarction. Surgeons should be aware that resection of opercular glioma can disrupt the blood supply of the corona radiata, and carries the risk of permanent motor deficits.