Pterional approach for surgical treatment of olfactory groove meningiomas.

We present our experience with the surgical treatment of olfactory groove meningiomas using a pterional approach. This approach provides the advantages of previous techniques, such as preserving the frontal brain and superior sagittal sinus, early devascularization of the tumor, and late dissection of tumor borders. Moreover, it also compensates for the shortcomings of other techniques, e.g., compression of frontal bridging veins, late dissection of dorsal tumor aspects involving vessels and optic nerves as well as facultative infection and cerebrospinal fluid fistula-related complications caused by opening of frontal sinuses. To date, 11 patients were treated in this way. As we encountered no surgical complications in our series we are encouraged to present our procedure.