Role of endoscopic surgical biopsy in diagnoses of intraventricular/periventricular tumors: review of literature including a monocentric case series

The intra- and periventricular location tumor (IPVT) of a brain remains a hard challenge for the neurosurgeon because of the deep location and eloquent anatomic associations. Due to this high risk of iatrogenic injury, many surgeons elect to perform biopsies of such lesions to establish a diagnosis. On the one hand, stereotaxic needle biopsy (SNB) is a minimally invasive procedure but with a significant risk of complications and a high risk of lack of tissue for molecular analyses for this region [Fukushima in Neurosurgery 2:110–113 (1978)]; on the other hand, the use of endoscopic intraventricular biopsy (EIB) allows for diagnosis with minimal surgical intervention [Iwamoto et al. in Ann Neurol 64(suppl. 6):628–634 (2008)]. IPVTs and related CSF pathway obstructions can be safely and effectively treated with endoscopic techniques. It is not possible to compare EIB with diagnoses made by any other method or with the established treatment. We aim to analyze the accuracy of EIB results by comparing them with results of biopsies performed later, in other methods and thereby evaluating the treatment evolution considering our personal experience. The difficulties and complications encountered are presented and compared with those reported in the literature to obtain the best review possible for this topic. A systematic review of literature was done using MEDLINE, the NIH Library, PubMed, and Google Scholar yielded 1.951 cases for EIB and 1912 for SNB, according to standard systemic review techniques. Review was conducted on 50 studies describing surgical procedures for lesions intra- and para-ventricular. The primary outcome measure was a diagnostic success. We also consider 20 patients with IPVT treated in our department. Clinical characteristics and surgical outcome were evaluated and a systematic review of the literature was performed. Overall, all our biopsies were diagnostic, with a positive histologic sample in 100% of our patients. 8 patients underwent a concurrent endoscopic third ventriculostomy. 4 patients underwent a concurrent ventriculostomy combined with septostomy. For 1 patient was necessary the only septostomy combined with biopsy. Every case has obtained a histological diagnosis. The percentage of complications was very low with only 1 case of post-operative infection and 1 case of hemorrhage. It was impossible to create a specific comparison from literature data of IPVTs between a stereotactic and endoscopic procedure, it presents only the co