Tumors of the Skull Base

  • Kadir Erkmen
  • Ossama Al-Mefty
  • Badih Adada

Abstract

The skull base is affected by a wide range of tumor pathologies. They are often slow-growing, benign, extra-axial tumors that cause symptoms by involvement of the cranial nerves or a mass effect on the brain stem and cerebellum. They are often located in critical areas within the cranium that are especially hard to reach with routine surgical techniques. Involvement of cranial nerves and vessels makes these lesions particularly challenging to treat surgically. Due to the benign nature of most of these lesions, complete surgical removal often affords a cure, although some skull-base tumors require a combination of surgical and radiation therapies.

Keywords

Skull Base Cavernous Sinus Glomus Tumor Sigmoid Sinus Occipital Condyle 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

References

  1. 1.
    Surawicz TS, McCarthy BJ, Kupelian V. (1999) Descriptive epidemiology of primary brain and CNS tumors: results from the central brain tumor registry of the United States. Neuro-oncology 1(1):14–25PubMedGoogle Scholar
  2. 2.
    Heffelfinger MJ, Dahlin DC, MacCarty CS, Beabout JW. (1973) Chordomas and cartilaginous tumors at the skull base. Cancer 32(2):410–420PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. 3.
    Krayenbuhl H, Yasargil MG. (1975) Cranial Chordomas. Prg Neurol Surg 6:380–434Google Scholar
  4. 4.
    Borba LA, Al-Mefty O, Mrak RE, Suen J. (1996) Cranial chordomas in children and adolescents. J Neurosurg 84 (4):584–591PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. 5.
    al-Mefty O, Borba LA. (1997) Skull base chordomas: a management challenge. J Neurosurg 86(2):182–189PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. 6.
    Colli B, Al-Mefty O. (2001) Chordomas of the craniocervi-cal junction: follow-up review and prognostic factors. J Neurosurg 95(6):933–943PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. 7.
    Arnautovic KI, Al-Mefty O. (2001) Surgical seeding of chordomas. J Neurosurg 95(5):798–803PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. 8.
    Hug EB, Loredo LN, Slater JD, DeVries A, Grove RI, Schaefer RA, Rosenberg AE, Slater JM. (1999) Proton radiation therapy for chordomas and chondrosarcomas of the skull base. J Neurosurg 91(3):432–439PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. 9.
    Munzenrider JE, Liebsch NJ. (1999) Proton therapy for tumors of the skull base. Strahlenther Onkol 175(Suppl 2):57–63PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. 10.
    Casali PG, Messina A, Stacchiotti S, Tamborini E, Crippa F, Gronchi A, Orlandi R, Ripamonti C, Spreafico C, Bertieri R, Bertulli R, Colecchia M, Fumagalli E, Greco A, Grosso F, Olmi P, Pierotti MA, Pilotti S. (2004) Imatinib mesylate in chordoma. Cancer 101(9):2086–2097PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. 11.
    Ron E, Modan B, Joice JD, Alfandary E, Stovall M, Chetrit A, et al (1988) Tumors of the brain and nervous system after radiotherapy in childhood. New England Journal of Medicine 319:1033–1039PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. 12.
    Al-Mefty O, Topsakal C, Pravdenkova S, Sawyer JR, Harrison MJ. (2004) Radiation-induced meningiomas: clinical, pathological, cytokinetic, and cytogenetic characteristics. J Neurosurgery 100(6):1002–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. 13.
    Maini CL, Sciuto R, Tofani A, Ferraironi A, Carapella CM, Occhipinti E, Mottolese M, Crecco M. (1995) Somatostatin receptor imaging in CNS tumours using 111In-octreotide. Nucl Med Commun 16(9):756–766PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. 14.
    Kleihues P, Cavenee W (eds). (2000) World Health Organization classification of tumors: pathology and genetics of tumors of the nervous sytem. IARC Press, Lyon, FranceGoogle Scholar
  15. 15.
    Perry A, Stafford SL, Scheithauer BW, Suman VJ, Lohse CM. (1997) Meningioma grading: an analysis of his-tologic parameters. Am J Surg Pathol 21(12):1455–1465PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. 16.
    Perry A, Scheithauer BW, Stafford SL, Lohse CM, Wollan PC. (1999) “Malignancy” in meningiomas: a clini-copathologic study of 116 patients, with grading implications. Cancer 85(9):2046–2056PubMedGoogle Scholar
  17. 17.
    Al-Mefty O, Kadri PA, Pravdenkova S, Sawyer JR, Stangeby C, Husain M. (2004) Malignant progression in meningioma: documentation of a series and analysis of cyto-genetic findings. J Neurosurg 101(2):210–218PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. 18.
    Cushing h, Eisenhardt L. (1938) Meningiomas: their classi-fication, regional behaviour, life history, and surgical end results. Charles c Thomas, Springfield, ILGoogle Scholar
  19. 19.
    Pieper DR, Al-Mefty O, Hanada Y, Buechner D. (1999) Hyperostosis associated with meningioma of the cranial base: secondary changes or tumor invasion. Neurosurgery 44(4):742–746; discussion 746–747PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. 20.
    Al-Mefty O. (1990) Clinoidal meningiomas. J Neurosurg 73(6):840–849PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. 21.
    DeMonte F, Smith HK, al-Mefty O. (1994) Outcome of aggressive removal of cavernous sinus meningiomas. J Neurosurg 81(2):245–251PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. 22.
    Arnautovic KI, Al-Mefty O. (2002) Primary meningiomas of the jugular fossa. J Neurosurg 97(1):12–20PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. 23.
    Simpson D. (1957) The recurrence of intracranial menin-giomas after surgical treatment. J Neurochem 20(1):22–39Google Scholar
  24. 24.
    Pollock BE, Stafford SL, Utter A, Giannini C, Schreiner SA. (2003) Stereotactic radiosurgery provides equivalent tumor control to Simpson Grade 1 resection for patients with small-to medium-size meningiomas. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 55(4):1000–1005PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. 25.
    Borba LA, Al-Mefty O. (1996) Intravagal paragangliomas: report of four cases. Neurosurgery 38(3):569–575; discussion 575PubMedGoogle Scholar
  26. 26.
    Fisch U. (1982) Infratemporal fossa approach for glomus tumors of the temporal bone. Ann Otol Rhinol Laryngol 91(5 Pt 1):474–479PubMedGoogle Scholar
  27. 27.
    Jackson CG, Glasscock ME 3rd, McKennan KX, Koopmann CF Jr, Levine SC, Hays JW, Smith HP. (1987) The surgical treatment of skull-base tumors with intracranial extension. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 96(2):175–185PubMedGoogle Scholar
  28. 28.
    Al-Mefty O, Teixeira A. (2002) Complex tumors of the glo-mus jugulare: criteria, treatment, and outcome. J Neurosurg 97(6):1356–1366PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. 29.
    Kadri PA, Al-Mefty O. (2004) Surgical treatment of dumbbell-shaped jugular foramen schwannomas. Neurosurg Focus 17(2):E9PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. 30.
    Gottfried ON, Liu JK, Couldwell WT. (2004) Comparison of radiosurgery and conventional surgery for the treatment of glomus jugulare tumors. Neurosurg Focus 17(2):E4PubMedCrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Kadir Erkmen
    • 1
  • Ossama Al-Mefty
    • 2
  • Badih Adada
    • 1
  1. 1.University of ArkansasLittle RockUSA
  2. 2.Department of NeurosurgeryUniversity of Arkansas for Medical SciencesLittle Rock ARUSA

Personalised recommendations