Gamma knife radiosurgical management of petroclival meningiomas results and indications.

BACKGROUND: Surgical treatment of petroclival meningiomas remains challenging. In order to refine indications for the use of stereotactic radiosurgery in the treatment of these tumours, we retrospectively evaluated our experience in this field.
METHODS: Thirty-two patients harboring a petroclival meningioma were treated consecutively using a Gamma knife between December 92 and June 1998. Eight patients underwent radiosurgery after one or more attempted surgical removals and 24 had radiosurgery as the primary treatment. The main symptoms before radiosurgery were cranial nerve palsies, including a sixth nerve deficit in 10 patients and a trigeminal nerve disturbance in 9. All patients underwent a conformal multi-isocentric treatment (mean isocenter's number 8.8) and the dose delivered at the tumour margin ranged from 10 to 15 Gy (mean dose 13 Gy).
FINDINGS: The duration of follow-up varied from 24 to 118 months (mean clinical follow-up 56 months, mean radiological follow-up 52.6 months). All 32 patients survived. The tumour volume remained unchanged in 28 patients and decreased slightly in 4. Neurological status worsened permanently in 2 patients with a delayed hemiparesis due to focal pontine infarction. These complications were associated with large meningiomas with vascular involvement and ventral brainstem compression, and occurred at the very early stage of our experience. At last follow-up, preoperative fifth or sixth cranial nerve deficits had improved or recovered in 13 out of 19 patients and any delayed worsening or new cranial nerve deficits were not observed after radiosurgery.
CONCLUSIONS: Stereotactic radiosurgery with a Gamma knife provides effective management of small to middle sized petroclival meningiomas and is an alternative to microsurgery. Careful selection of patients and use of major technical refinements should improve the safety of this treatment.