Surgical indications and treatment strategies for lateral ventricle and third ventricle tumors

Abstract

Various histological tumors occur in the lateral and third ventricles, and they are usually slow‒grow-ing tumors. Representative lateral intraventricular tumors include central neurocytoma, ependymoma, subependymoma, choroid plexus tumor, subependymal giant cell astrocytoma, and meningioma. Representative third ventricular tumors include chordoid glioma, craniopharyngioma, optic pathway glioma, germi-noma, and pineal tumors. Treatment strategies need to be determined by tumor histology, and a consensus has not been reached for the treatment of some types of tumors. There are some discussions about whether complete tumor removal needs to be pursued or whether surgical decompression followed by adjuvant therapy should be considered because these tumors are located deep in the brain or close to the vital neurovascular structure. Recently, new treatment modalities, such as neuroendoscopy and stereotactic radiosurgery, have been introduced, and the treatment options for these tumors have thus widened. In this article, the authors present an overview of the current status of the treatment for representative lateral intraventricular and third ventricle tumors and discuss further problems to be solved in the future. (Received December 13, 2018；accepted March 26, 2019).