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Updated: Aug 19, 2025
Role of Diffusion MRI Tractography in Endoscopic Endonasal Skull Base Surgery
Published on: July 5, 2021
[Transnasal endoscopic skull base surgery: analysis of complications in the first 120 procedures]
Héctor Pablo Rojas1, Pablo Horacio José1, Roberto Rafael Herrera2
1Unidad de Cirugía Hipofisaria y Base de Cráneo, Grupo Gamma, Rosario, Argentina.
Background:
The endonasal endoscopic approach (EEA) has potential advantages over traditional open approaches. However, complications such as cerebrospinal fluid (CFS) leak, visual disturbances, and postoperative meningitis have been described. The aim was to present the experience accumulated in 120 cases of skull base EEA performed by the same surgical team and describe and analyze the main postoperative complications according to the complexity of the cases.
Methods:
Retrospective study on our database of patients undergoing skull base EEA for various pathologies between July 2011 and March 2022.
Results:
120 skull base EEA surgeries were analyzed. 57.14% were performed on women. The median age was 44 years. 26.66% were reinterventions. The most frequent pathology was pituitary adenoma (49.17%) followed by CSF leak (8.33%). The most used EEA was the transelar 65.83%. 26 complications were recorded, with no differences according to complexity. There were 13 cases of diabetes insipidus (DI) and 8 of CSF leak. This was more frequent in patients with intraoperative CSF leak. The median hospital stay was 5.5 days.
Conclusion:
Skull base EEA has become increasingly common for the surgical management of skull base pathology, with a low frequency of immediate postoperative complications and low mortality. The improvement of the technique and the improvement in postoperative care are associated with a shorter hospital stay.
