Ectopic clival craniopharyngioma.

Ectopic craniopharyngioma is a rare entity. The authors present a very rare case of an ectopic clival craniopharyngioma completely separate from the sella turcica.A 44-year old woman presented with abducens palsy. A MR imaging study and a CT scan revealed a cystic clival lesion separate from the sella turcica. Surgical resection was performed successfully with flexible endoscope-assisted procedure using an endonasal transsphenoidal approach. No evidence of involvement of the sellar region was found according to radiological, intra-operative, and clinical findings.A review of the literature revealed no other such cases. The discussion includes the formation of craniopharyngioma from the ectopic Rathke's pouch remnants and the surgical approach for clival lesions. We believe that our approach provides good results with minimal invasiveness for some clival lesions.