Background: The clinical condition of advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients is often complicated by motor fluctuations and dyskinesias which are difficult to control with available oral medications. Objective: To compare clinical and neuropsychological 12 month outcome following subcutaneous apomorphine infusion (APO) and chronic deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) in advanced PD patients. Methods: Patients with advanced PD and medically untreatable fluctuations underwent either APO (13 patients) or STN-DBS (12 patients). All patients were clinically (UPDRS-III, AIMS, 12 h on-off daily) and neuropsychologically (MMSE, Hamilton-17 depression, NPI) evaluated at baseline and at 12 months. APO was discontinued at night. Results: At 12 months APO treatment (74.78±24.42 mg/day) resulted in significant reduction in off time (−51%) and no change in AIMS. Levodopa equivalent medication doses were reduced from 665.98±215 mg/day at baseline to 470±229 mg/day. MMSE, NPI, and Hamilton depression scores were unchanged. At 12 months STN-DBS resulted in significant clinical improvement in terms of reduction in daily off time (−76%) and AIMS (−81%) as well as levodopa equivalent medication doses (980±835 to 374±284 mg/day). Four out of 12 patients had stopped oral medications. MMSE was unchanged (from 28.6±0.3 to 28.4±0.6). Hamilton depression was also unchanged, but NPI showed significant worsening (from 6.58±9.8 to 18.16±10.2; p<0.02). Category fluency also declined. Conclusions: Both APO and STN-DBS resulted in significant clinical improvement in complicated PD. STN-DBS resulted in greater reduction in dopaminergic medications and provided 24 h motor benefit. However, STN-DBS, unlike APO, appears to be associated with significant worsening on NPI resulting from long term behavioral problems in some patients.

Disregarding the widely used division of skull base into anterior and lateral, since the skull base should be conceived as a single anatomic structure, it was to our convenience to group all those approaches that run from the antero-lateral, pure lateral and postero-lateral side of the skull base as “Surgery of the lateral skull base”. “50 years of endeavour” points to the great effort which has been made over the last decades, when more and more difficult surgeries were performed by reducing morbidity. The principle of lateral skull base surgery, “Remove skull base bone to approach the base itself and the adjacent sites of the endo-esocranium”, was then combined with function preservation and with tailoring surgery to the pathology. The concept that histology dictates the extent of resection, balancing the intrinsic morbidity of each approach was the object of the first section of the present report. The main surgical approaches were described in the second section and were conceived not as a step-by-step description of technique, but as the highlighthening of the surgical principles. The third section was centered on open issues related to the tumor and its treatment. The topic of vestibular schwannoma was investigated with the current debate on observation, hearing preservation surgery, hearing rehabilitation, radiotherapy and the recent efforts to detect biological markers able to predict their growth. Jugular foramen paragangliomas were treated in the frame of radical or partial surgery, radiotherapy, partial “tailored” surgery and observation. Surgery on meningioma was debated from the point of view of the neurosurgeon and of the otologist. Endolymphatic sac tumors and malignant tumors of the external auditory canal were also treated, as well as chordomas, chondrosarcomas and petrous bone cholesteatomas. Finally, the fourth section focused on free-choice topics which were assigned to aknowledged experts. The aim of this work was attempting to report the state of the art of the lateral skull base surgery after 50 years of hard work and, above all, to raise questions on those issues which still need an answer, as to allow progress in knowledge through sharing of various experiences. At the end of the reading, if more doubts remain rather than certainties, the aim of this work will probably be achieved.