Parietal transventricular approach for medial temporal glioma: A technical report

BACKGROUND: Medial temporal lobectomy (MTLy) poses a surgical challenge due to convoluted anatomy of medial temporal lobe (MTL). Various approaches have been described to access MTL for removing various pathologies. We, hereby, describe the parietal transventricular approach for removing a concurrent medial temporal glioma in a patient with recurrent parietal glioma. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 40-year-old female operated and diagnosed case of the right parietal anaplastic astrocytoma presented to us with a recurrence in parietal region. In addition, a fresh lesion was observed in the right MTL suggestive of a separate temporal glioma. The patient underwent excision of both parietal and temporal gliomas through the parietal approach only. Complete excision of parietal recurrence and near-total excision of medial temporal glioma was achieved. CONCLUSION: The parietal approach can be used for excision of medial temporal lesions, especially those involving or extending into its posterior limits. In the presence of concurrent parietal and MTL lesions, both lesions can be removed through a single parietal approach rather than a separate approach for MTLy. It offers additional advantages of the preservation of optic radiations as well as the temporal neocortex. The visual orientation of MTL structures is different when viewed from the parietal approach as compared to the temporal approaches. The parietal approach provides in line orientation of medial temporal structures contrary to the perpendicular orientation visualized in temporal approaches. An understanding of MTL anatomy as viewed from a parietal vantage point and its three-dimensional conceptualization is very important to successfully remove lesions of MTL through the parietal approach.