Endoscopic treatment of cavum vergae cyst: case report and review

A 3.5-year-old boy was admitted with febrile convulsion for the first time. The patient had a medical history of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and premature delivery in the 21st week of pregnancy. Further, he suffered from neonatal germinal matrix hemorrhage and intraventricular hematoma (IVH). The patient was treated in the pediatric intensive care unit. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed resorption of the hematoma with the presence of cavum vergae (CV) variation. The new brain MRI revealed progression of the cavum to a large CV cyst compared with the previous imagings, causing pressure upon both lateral ventricles. Endoscopic fenestration of the lateral walls of the cyst with lateral ventricles was performed. The postoperative period was uneventful and the patient was discharged the next day. Followup MRI one year after surgery showed normal ventricle size, shrinkage of the cyst and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow between the cyst and the lateral ventricles. This is an interesting demonstration of the progression over years of a CV anatomical variation to a large CV cyst in a premature birth case that experienced germinal matrix hemorrhage

Comment on Article ‘Split Calvarial Bone Graft for the Reconstruction of Skull Defects’

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Psychosurgery: Review of Latest Concepts and Applications

Although the utilization of psychosurgery has commenced in early 19th century, when compared with other neurosurgical fields, it faced many obstacles resulting in the delay of advancement of this type of surgical methodology. This was due to the insufficient knowledge of both neural networks of the brain and the pathophysiology of psychiatric diseases. The aggressive surgical treatment modalities with high mortality and morbidity rates, the controversial ethical concerns, and the introduction of antipsychotic drugs were also among those obstacles. With the recent advancements in the field of neuroscience more accurate knowledge was gained in this field offering new ideas for the management of these diseases. Also, the recent technological developments aided the surgeons to define more sophisticated and minimally invasive techniques during the surgical procedures. Maybe the most important factor in the rerising of psychosurgery is the assemblage of the experts, clinicians, and researchers in various fields of neurosciences implementing a multidisciplinary approach. In this article, the authors aim to review the latest concepts of the pathophysiology and the recent advancements of the surgical treatment of psychiatric diseases from a neurosurgical point of view

Thoracoscopic anatomy and approaches of the anterior thoracic spine: cadaver study

In spite of the extensive case studies considering thoracoscopic approaches to the anterior thoracic spine, the literature lacks studies of the thoracoscopic anatomic dissection and approaches. In this article, the authors present their study of thoracoscopic anatomy of the anterior spine with illustrated step-wise dissection and approaches for sympathectomy, discectomy and corpectomy