Essay On Skull Base Meningioma

Skull base meningioma is a challenging entity: Most cases are low-grade meningiomas characterized by slow growth patterns which are rather expansive than invasive. Due to the intricate anatomy in the skull base region meningiomas are generally in very close vicinity to sensitive normal tissue structures. For all treatment alternatives, the small spaces and narrow anatomical boundaries must be kept in mind when deciding on the treatment method and when counseling patients.
For a long time, surgical removal was the standard of care, independently of the size, location or histology. However, due to the anatomical limitations, neurosurgical intervention may bear the risk of significant side effects. Over the last decade radiation therapy (RT) has become a valid treatment alternative for the treatment of meningiomas. Especially with the advent of high precision techniques, such as stereotactic radiotherapy or intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Local dose deposition became possible, while normal tissue could be spared and acute as well as long-term treatment-related side effects could be kept very low. Several institutions have treated skull base …show more content…
The present analysis reports on the pooled data of three large radiation oncology centers for radiosurgery and high-precision RT (FSRT or IMRT) for skull base meningiomas to evaluate long-term outcome as well as treatment-related side effects in a very large group of