الفهرس 
BasicsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 200 |  |  |
| | | from | 200 | | |
Abstract
Pineal region tumors are uncommon type of brain tumors. They are more common in children than in adults. They carry a great variety and heterogenous types of lesions due to the various structures in that area, varying between neural tissues, glial tissues and vascular structures. Being in almost center of the cranium, in depth, and surrounded by complex vasculature makes any surgical procedure upon it a challenging one, even to professional Neurosurgeons.
Operating upon that area, holds a great risk on the patients’ lives. Since some of the lesions (as: germinomas) are radiosensitive, no need for their surgical excision and exposing those patients lives to danger. Thus reaching the histopathological diagnosis of the lesion with the least invasive approaches became the preliminary step in the management of these kind of tumors and a critical step.
There are different types of minimally invasive techniques achieving our goal. These include the stereotactic approach and the endoscopic (more recent and newer) approach. Stereotaxy has been used from a very long time, a lot before endoscopy was used in neurosurgery. Since neuroendoscopy has aroused as a newer technique, it has raised questions whether it will replace the old stereotactic techniques, or stereotaxy will still keep shining and maintain its importance throughout our clinical practice.
Our study has been performed to solve such questions; to compare between both techniques and help surgeons later on to decide wiser, faster, with analysed proofs which technique will benefit the patient more and be safer to apply.
According to the systematic review we have performed using data from 44 articles published throughout the last 30 years. We have found that stereotactic guided biopsies are better to perform regarding the diagnostic accuracy of the specimens yielded, with less complications than Endoscopy. What makes endoscopic approaches unique is that it helps with CSF diversion at the same setting of yielding a biopsy of the lesion.