Patient-Reported Outcomes: Quality of Care on a Neurosurgical Ward.

Background And Objectives: Patient experience has become a quality measure in hospitals across the United States. To improve our understanding of our neurosurgical patient population's satisfaction needs, we undertook a detailed survey to identify areas of needed improvement.

Methods: Upon institutional review board approval, a detailed survey adopted from the Swedish quality-of-care patient questionnaire was distributed to all patients being discharged from the neurosurgical ward over a month period.

Robot-assisted stereotactic biopsy of pediatric brainstem and thalamic lesions.

Objective: Biopsies of tumors located in deep midline structures require highly accurate stereotaxy to safely obtain lesional tissue suitable for molecular and histological analysis. Versatile platforms are needed to meet a broad range of technical requirements and surgeon preferences. The authors present their institutional experience with the robotic stereotactic assistance (ROSA) system in a series of robot-assisted biopsies of pediatric brainstem and thalamic tumors.

Resection of Spinal Meningioma Using Ultrasonic BoneScalpel Microshaver: Cases, Technique, and Review of the Literature.

Background: Meningiomas of the spinal canal comprise up to 40% of all spinal tumors. The standard management of these tumors is gross total resection. The outcome and extent of resection depends on location, size, patient's neurologic status, and experience of the surgeon.

Minimally Invasive Tubular Tethered Cord Release in the Pediatric Population.

Background: Tethered cord syndrome (TCS) refers to a clinical constellation of signs and symptoms associated with tension in the spinal cord and associated with pathologies related to abnormally low-lying conus medullaris. As minimally invasive spinal operations have become more prevalent in the past decade, we applied expanding indications to selected intradural procedures, such as tethered cord release (TCR). We present the first series of minimally invasive muscle-sparing TCR in the pediatric population.

Orbital AL amyloid.

Amyloidosis and lymphoma localized to the ocular adnexa are rare, and their presentation may resemble more common inflammatory conditions such as autoimmune disease or infection, which can protract diagnostic evaluation and delay eventual therapy. In a patient with recalcitrant facial and tooth pain and ophthalmoplegia, evaluation should include careful histopathologic analysis of biopsy specimens. We report a case of orbital AL amyloidosis associated with localized lymphoma that presented with intractable dental pain and progressed to bilateral complete ophthalmoplegia.