Transoral Versus Transnasal Approach for Craniovertebral Junction Pathologies: Never Say Never.

Objective: For many years, the microsurgical transoral approach (TOA) has been accepted as the "gold standard" for the surgical treatment of a variety of congenital, developmental, and acquired pathologies affecting the craniovertebral junction. In the present study, we try to investigate both experimental and clinical fronts of such a challenging surgery, starting from the updated literature experience. TOA is actually presented as an "old-fashioned" surgical technique dealing with possible bacterial contamination, the need of postoperative nose gastric tube feeding for a week, the possible nasopharyngeal incompetence, and the postoperative tongue swelling. Otherwise, the endoscopic endonasal approach (EEA) appears strongly supported by the modern literature as the true "minimally invasive" procedure.

Methods: Our clinical experience deals with 23 anterior procedures in paediatric and adult patients (17 TOA and 6 EEA). We further report on our experimental cadaver laboratory study of 12 subjects.

Results: All the patients of TOA group but one were discharged after posterior procedures within two weeks and improved or remained unchanged after surgery and during the follow-up. No mayor complications occurred in TOA group. In EEA group two patients died for cerebrospinal fluid infection, for disease progression and for heart attack.

Conclusion: Our and other available data suggest that no clear superiority of EEA over endoscopic TOA can be assessed so far; on the other hand, EEA can produce complications similar to TOA in craniovertebral junction surgery.