Management of Tumors of the Anterior Third and Lateral Ventricles

Abstract

Although in most series, tumors of the anterior third and lateral ventricles represent less than 3% of all intracranial tumors, they pose formidable technical challenges, given its deep location and the need to go through normal brain, sometimes creating corridors close to important functional areas (Fig. 1). They are often histologically benign so if they are totally and safely removed, patients can be definitively cured. Like in several other areas, the principles of surgery for tumors of the third ventricle were established by Walter Dandy, who in 1936 published his monograph “Benign Tumors in the Third Ventricle of the Brain” [3]. Fig. 1. An outline of the main surgical approaches to intraventricular tumors (adapted from Piepmeier et al. [10] and Rhoton [11])