Surgical management for skull base meningiomas

Although the ideal treatment of skull base meningiomas is complete surgical resection, in some cases total removal is impossible because of the tumor invasion to the cranial nerves, major blood vessels, or other important neural structures. The recent advances in skull base surgery have contributed to increase the radicality. On the other hand, stereotaxic radiotherapy has been established to treat small meningiomas located in areas, where surgical access is not easy. The goal of surgical removal should be estimated in each case to avoid serious surgical complications, and some kind of stereotaxic radiotherapy may be indicated according to the biological behavior of the tumor.