Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common primary brain tumor. The extent of resection (EOR) has been claimed as one of the most important prognostic factors. Fluorescent dyes aid surgeons in detecting a tumor’s borders. 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) and sodium fluorescein (SF) are the most used. Only a few studies have directly compared these two fluorophores. Methods: A single center retrospective analysis of patients treated for GBM in the period between January 2018 and January 2021 was built to find any differences in terms of EOR, Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), and overall survival (OS) on the use of 5-ALA, SF, or both. Results: Overall, 99 patients affected by isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) wild-type Glioblastoma were included. 5-ALA was administered to 40 patients, SF to 44, and both to 15. No statistically significant associations were identified between the fluorophore and EOR (p = 0.783) or postoperative KPS (p = 0.270). Survival analyses did not show a selective advantage for the use of a given fluorophore (p = 0.184), although there appears to be an advantageous trend associated with the concomitant use of both dyes, particularly after stratification by MGMT (p = 0.071). Conclusions: 5-Ala and SF are equally useful in achieving gross total resection of the enhancing tumor volume. The combination of both fluorophores could lead to an OS advantage.

Objective: Clinical and surgical decisions for glioblastoma patients depend on a tumor imaging-based evaluation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be applied to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessment to support clinical practice, surgery planning and prognostic predictions. In a real-world context, the current obstacles for AI are low-quality imaging and postoperative reliability. The aim of this study is to train an automatic algorithm for glioblastoma segmentation on a clinical MRI dataset and to obtain reliable results both pre- and post-operatively. Methods: The dataset used for this study comprises 237 (71 preoperative and 166 postoperative) MRIs from 71 patients affected by a histologically confirmed Grade IV Glioma. The implemented U-Net architecture was trained by transfer learning to perform the segmentation task on postoperative MRIs. The training was carried out first on BraTS2021 dataset for preoperative segmentation. Performance is evaluated using DICE score (DS) and Hausdorff 95% (H95). Results: In preoperative scenario, overall DS is 91.09 (± 0.60) and H95 is 8.35 (± 1.12), considering tumor core, enhancing tumor and whole tumor (ET and edema). In postoperative context, overall DS is 72.31 (± 2.88) and H95 is 23.43 (± 7.24), considering resection cavity (RC), gross tumor volume (GTV) and whole tumor (WT). Remarkably, the RC segmentation obtained a mean DS of 63.52 (± 8.90) in postoperative MRIs. Conclusions: The performances achieved by the algorithm are consistent with previous literature for both pre-operative and post-operative glioblastoma’s MRI evaluation. Through the proposed algorithm, it is possible to reduce the impact of low-quality images and missing sequences.

Amino acid PET imaging has been used for a few years in the clinical and surgical management of gliomas with satisfactory results in diagnosis and grading for surgical and radiotherapy planning and to differentiate recurrences. Biological tumor volume (BTV) provides more meaningful information than standard MR imaging alone and often exceeds the boundary of the contrast-enhanced nodule seen in MRI. Since a gross total resection reflects the resection of the contrast-enhanced nodule and the majority of recurrences are at a tumor’s margins, an integration of PET imaging during resection could increase PFS and OS. A systematic review of the literature searching for “PET” [All fields] AND “glioma” [All fields] AND “resection” [All fields] was performed in order to investigate the diffusion of integration of PET imaging in surgical practice. Integration in a neuronavigation system and intraoperative use of PET imaging in the primary diagnosis of adult high-grade gliomas were among the criteria for article selection. Only one study has satisfied the inclusion criteria, and a few more (13) have declared to use multimodal imaging techniques with the integration of PET imaging to intentionally perform a biopsy of the PET uptake area. Despite few pieces of evidence, targeting a biologically active area in addition to other tools, which can help intraoperatively the neurosurgeon to increase the amount of resected tumor, has the potential to provide incremental and complementary information in the management of brain gliomas. Since supramaximal resection based on the extent of MRI FLAIR hyperintensity resulted in an advantage in terms of PFS and OS, PET-based biological tumor volume, avoiding new neurological deficits, deserves further investigation.

Given the importance of maximizing resection for prognosis in patients with HGG and the potential risks associated with ventricle opening, this study aimed to assess the actual increase in post-surgical complications related to lateral ventricle opening and its influence on OS and PFS. A retrospective study was conducted on newly diagnosed HGG, dividing the patients into two groups according to whether the lateral ventricle was opened (69 patients) or not opened (311 patients). PFS, OS, subependymal dissemination, distant parenchymal recurrences, the development of hydrocephalus and CSF leak were considered outcome measures. A cohort of 380 patients (154 females (40.5%) and 226 males (59.5%)) was involved in the study (median age 61 years). The PFS averaged 10.9 months (±13.3 SD), and OS averaged 16.6 months (± 16.3 SD). Among complications, subependymal dissemination was registered in 15 cases (3.9%), multifocal and multicentric progression in 56 cases (14.7%), leptomeningeal dissemination in 12 (3.2%) and hydrocephalus in 8 (2.1%). These occurrences could not be clearly justified by ventricular opening. The act of opening the lateral ventricles itself does not carry an elevated risk of dissemination, hydrocephalus or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak. Therefore, if necessary, it should be pursued to achieve radical removal of the disease.

Background: Gliomas are among the most challenging pathologies for neurosurgeons due to their infiltrative and recurrent nature in functionally relevant regions. Current knowledge confirms that gross total resection highly influence survival in patient with glioma. However, surgery performed in eloquent brain area, could seriously compromise the quality of life in patient with reduced life expectancy even more if it concerns the language function. Methods: 18 right-handed patients with perisylvian gliomas on the left hemisphere were prospectively analyzed over a period of 12 months. Standardized preoperative Diffusion-Tensor-Imaging based tractography of the five main language Tracts (Arcuate Fasciculus, Frontal Aslant Tract, Inferior Fronto-Occipital Fasciculus, Inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus, Uncinate Fasciculus) was navigated during the surgical procedure. Using a validated method, correlations were made between the pre-operative fascicles and their possible infiltration and surgical damage. The language status was assessed using the Aachen Aphasia Test. Results: In all nine patients who developed a permanent disorder there was pre-operative involvement of at least one fascicle and resection of at least one of these. In this way, areas of high risk of permanent language damage have emerged as a result of surgical injury: the temporoparietal junction, the middle portion of the FAT and the temporal stem. Conclusions: Navigated tractography has proven to be a user-friendly tool that can assess perioperative risk, guide surgical resection, and help the neurosurgeon to find that balance between tumor resection and function preservation.

Introduction: Patients’ quality of life (QoL), facial nerve (FN), and cochlear nerve (CN) (if conserved) functions should be pursued as final outcomes of vestibular schwannoma (VS) surgery. In regard to FN function, different morphologic and neurophysiological factors have been related to postoperative outcomes. The aim of the current retrospective study was to investigate the impact of these factors on the short- and long-term FN function after VS resection. The combination of preoperative and intraoperative factors resulted in designing and validating a multiparametric score to predict short- and long-term FN function.Methods: A single-center retrospective analysis was performed for patients harboring non-syndromic VS who underwent surgical resection in the period 2015–2020. A minimum follow-up period of 12 months was considered among the inclusion criteria. Morphological tumor characteristics, intraoperative neurophysiological parameters, and postoperative clinical factors, namely, House–Brackmann (HB) scale, were retrieved in the study. A statistical analysis was conducted to investigate any relationships with FN outcome and to assess the reliability of the score.Results: Seventy-two patients with solitary primary VS were treated in the period of the study. A total of 59.8% of patients showed an HB value < 3 in the immediate postoperative period (T1), reaching to 76.4% at the last follow-up evaluation. A multiparametric score, Facial Nerve Outcome Score (FNOS), was built. The totality of patients with FNOS grade A showed an HB value < 3 at 12 months, decreasing to 70% for those with FNOS grade B, whereas 100% of patients with FNOS grade C showed an HB value ≥ 3. The ordinal logistic regression showed three times increasing probability to see an HB value ≥ 3 at 3-month follow-up for each worsening point in FNOS score [Exp(B), 2,999; p < 0.001] that was even more probable [Exp(B), 5.486; p < 0.001] at 12 months.Conclusion: The FNOS score resulted to be a reliable score, showing high associations with FN function both at short- and long-term follow-up. Although multicenter studies would be able to increase its reproducibility, it could be used to predict the FN damage after surgery and the potential of restoring its function on the long-term period.