The role of awake craniotomy in reducing intraoperative visual field deficits during tumor surgery.

Objective: Homonymous hemianopia due to damage to the optic radiations or visual cortex is a possible consequence of tumor resection involving the temporal or occipital lobes. The purpose of this review is to present and analyze a series of studies regarding the use of awake craniotomy (AC) to decrease visual field deficits following neurosurgery.

Materials And Methods: A literature search was performed using the Medline and PubMed databases from 1970 and 2014 that compared various uses of AC other than intraoperative motor/somatosensory/language mapping with a focus on visual field mapping.

Preconditioning for traumatic brain injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) treatment is now focused on the prevention of primary injury and reduction of secondary injury. However, no single effective treatment is available as yet for the mitigation of traumatic brain damage in humans. Both chemical and environmental stresses applied before injury have been shown to induce consequent protection against post-TBI neuronal death.

Biomarkers for the clinical differential diagnosis in traumatic brain injury--a systematic review.

Rapid triage and decision-making in the treatment of traumatic brain injury (TBI) present challenging dilemma in "resource poor" environments such as the battlefield and developing areas of the world. There is an urgent need for additional tools to guide treatment of TBI. The aim of this review is to establish the possible use of diagnostic TBI biomarkers in (1) identifying diffuse and focal brain injury and (2) assess their potential for determining outcome, intracranial pressure (ICP), and responses to therapy.