Background: Neurological and oncological outcomes of motor eloquent brain-tumor patients depend upon the ability to localize functional areas and the respective proposed therapy. We set out to determine whether the use of navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS) had an impact on treatment and outcome in patients with brain tumors in motor eloquent locations.
Methods: We enrolled 250 consecutive patients and compared their functional and oncological outcomes to a matched pre-nTMS control group (n = 115).
Background: Radiosurgical treatment of brain lesions near motor or language eloquent areas requires careful planning to achieve the optimal balance between effective dose prescription and preservation of function. Navigated brain stimulation (NBS) is the only non-invasive modality that allows the identification of functionally essential areas by electrical stimulation or inhibition of cortical neurons analogous to the gold-standard of intraoperative electrical mapping.
Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of NBS data integration into the radiosurgical environment, and to analyze the influence of NBS data on the radiosurgical treatment planning for lesions near or within motor or language eloquent areas of the brain.
Background: Intracranial arteriovenous malformations (AVM) are known to be potent inductors of functional plasticity, and their vasculature makes standard functional imaging difficult. Here we conducted functional mapping of both primary motor cortex and speech related areas in patients with AVM using navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation (nTMS), which has been recently proven as a reliable noninvasive modality of preoperative functional brain mapping.
Method: nTMS mapping was performed in ten patients with unruptured intracranial AVMs located in or near eloquent areas.