Petroclival meningioma. An attempt to define the role of skull base approaches in their surgical management.

Background: Petroclival meningiomas represent a difficult surgical challenge. The introduction of modern techniques of skull base surgery has stimulated the interest of the neurosurgical community in the surgical management of these lesions, although very good results have been obtained by experienced neurosurgeons in cases of petroclival meningioma operated using traditional surgical approaches.

Methods: Thirty-one cases of petroclival meningioma have been operated on during a 4-year period using two different philosophies as far as the approach.

Trigeminal neurinomas. A series of 111 surgical cases from a single institution.

Neurinomas arising from the trigeminal nerve are rare (0.1-0.4% of intracranial tumours: 1-8% of all intracranial neurinomas).