How to Perform Central Skull Base Approaches

Abstract

The central skull base may be defined as the spheno-clival and clival areas. Lesions involving this region may be intradural or extradural. Intradural lesions may be petroclival or lower clival/foramen magnum meningiomas, trigeminal or jugular foramen/hypoglossal schwannomas, or other benign tumors. Lesions involving the extradural area are predominantly chordomas, chondrosarcomas, cholesterol granulomas, adenoid cystic carcinomas, and some invasive pituitary tumors. Many specialized skull base approaches have been developed to deal with these lesions.