First experience with augmented reality neuronavigation in endoscopic assisted midline skull base pathologies in children

The endoscopic-assisted endonasal approach to the skull base is rarely applied in children compared to adults. In recent years, a number of authors have described the use of a transcribriform/transtuberculum/transsphenoidal or transclival access to midline skull base pathologies. In fact, they are described as anatomically, clinically, and technically challenging. Nowadays these extracranial approaches are preferred in the adult population mainly due to its minimal invasive character, with a few exceptions and contraindications such as anatomical anomalies, for example, “kissing carotids”, or particular configuration of the lesions. The same cannot always be applied to children, although in recent years, the technique has been used increasingly in some pediatric cohorts [22, 24, 25]. Specifically, the incomplete pneumatization of the sphenoid sinus, the thickness of the bone and the intercarotid distance in pediatric skull base anatomy influence the surgical planning to calculate the distance to the structures such as planum sphenoidale, tuberculum sellae, dorsum sellae, or clivus [26]. In addition, the technique in ventral approaches to the skull base, which is usually linked to lower morbidity, is more complex in children, consequently with higher incidence of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak [16]. The access through the piriform aperture might have also implications on the growth of the midface in case of excessive bone damage in younger children [1, 14].

The implementation of neuronavigation into endoscopic procedures can help to better identify anatomical variations, the lesion’s boundaries within the surgical field, and spatial relations between lesion and normal tissue. In conventional neuronavigation systems, the information must be transformed from the navigation workstation by the surgeon, while the endoscope enables pointer function after registration. New perspectives can be reached by implementing augmented reality (AR) technologies in neuronavigation systems. This has already been used in microscopic-navigated neurosurgery, in which navigated information can directly be superimposed into the surgical field of view [2, 6, 26]. The integration of AR into navigated endoscopy is specifically meaningful since the endoscopic view is somehow limited but can be brought directly into the surgical field. The connection between real imaging and virtual data, presented as contour reconstructed objects onto real anatomical views, has been described to be helpful especially in minimal invasive surgical techniques [17]. The technology enhances the definition of targets and their spatial relationships to neighboring structures. Such advancements are particularly relevant in the so called tunnel principle of endoscopic surgery, although operator-related and system-borne biases still limit their routine use [3].

The objective of this paper is to retrospectively report our experience, with regard to morbidity in the field of endoscopic skull base surgery performed in combination with AR in the pediatric population.

We conducted a retrospective analysis on 17 endoscopic procedures in which AR-enhanced neuronavigation was used. The interventions took place in our center in a total of 11 patients, using the transnasal corridor in all but one case, in which the transoral corridor was utilized, to approach lesions of different nature affecting the midline skull base. The cohort of patients was treated in a period between October 2011 and May 2020 in an interdisciplinary setting. The clinical files of every patient were evaluated, given all the characteristics of the cohort as described in Table 1.

In a total of 11 patients (5 females), 17 endoscopic AR-navigated endoscopic procedures were conducted and retrospectively analyzed. Their mean age at surgery was 14.5 ± 2.4 years (range: 10.8–19.8 years). Histopathological diagnoses included five craniopharyngiomas (four adamantinomatous, one papillary), three Rathke cleft cysts, one GH-secreting macroadenoma, one myxoma, one germinoma, one aneurysmatic bone cyst, one abscess, one CSF leak, one benign fibrous lesion, and one osteochondromyxoma. Reoperations with AR navigated endoscopic surgery were performed in one craniopharyngioma (4 surgeries), in the myxoma patient (3 surgeries), and in one recurrent Rathke cleft cyst. Mean time to recurrent surgery was 2.1 ± 1.5 years. Five patients received previous surgeries before AR-navigated endoscopic-assisted intervention (craniopharyngiomas, n = 2; aneurysmatic bone cyst with pharyngeal extension; Rathke cyst; myxoma; n = 1 each; Table 1).

Signs and symptoms that indicated intervention were disease progression during regular follow-up imaging in 5 cases and lesion-related symptoms in 5 cases (headaches, dizziness, trigeminal neuralgia, diabetes insipidus, swallowing disorders, and hypoglossal palsy). In one case rhinoliquorrhea and meningitis at 6 months after previous surgery led to the diagnosis. In another case, the lesion was identified during regular follow-up of a Carney syndrome complex (CNC).

The mean duration of the surgery was 146.7 ± 52.6 min (range: 27–258 min). All the procedures were performed integrating the use of the endoscope with augmented reality-assisted neuronavigation. This functionality was experienced in all cases as accurate. Lesions were targeted as planned in a very straightforward manner since the information was directly displayed on the surgeon’s endoscopic view within the neuronavigation workstation. Targeting was continuously updated by automatically reconstructing MRI sections along with the directions of endoscopic view. This functionality was experienced as extremely helpful in all surgeries for better orientation during the approach as well as estimation of the extension of the targeted lesion.

Postoperatively, the clinical observation and monitoring were established in the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) usually for 24 h. In one case, the patient stayed 48 h in the ICU in order to manage possible endocrinologic alterations (e.g., hypopituitarism). In two cases, an ICU monitoring was not judged to be necessary. The mean total hospital stay duration was 8.6 ± 4.7 days (range 4–24 days).

In 9 out of 14 oncological lesions in this series, the early postoperative MRI has proven a complete or near complete removal of the lesion (extent of resection type 1: (n = 2), type 2b: n = 2), type 2c: n = 5, [13]). Partial resection was achieved in two interventions, both of which had also been intended for partial resection only. Biopsy was planned and successfully performed in four surgeries.

The observed complications comprised one postsurgical abscess in a craniopharyngioma case at 20 weeks after surgery, which was successfully treated by AR-navigated endoscopic-assisted surgery and antibiotic therapy, accordingly. Two CSF leaks required a revision surgery at 1 week and 6 months after initial surgery, respectively. One patient was surgically revised subsequently and did not show any further long-term issues. The second patient, diagnosed with a Carney Complex Syndrome, turned out to suffer from additional idiopathic intracranial hypertension with headaches and papilledema and received a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt during further follow-up.

The neurological outcome comprised one case of swallowing disorders in the patient with the aneurysmatic bone cyst, who postoperatively improved. It became possible to remove the tracheal cannula and who was slowly able to gain weight through oral nutrition. One case of residual quadrant anopia and an optic atrophy with left abducens palsy in craniopharyngioma cases remained stable after surgery and were related to the primary pathology. In the case with the GH-macroadenoma, papilledema and bitemporal hemianopsia resolved after decompressive surgery. One patient complained about regressive, but periodical headache during long-term follow-up. None of the cases did show any postoperative neurological deficit.

The endocrinological status of the patients was severely compromised before surgery, with panhypopituitarism in three patients (2 craniopharyngiomas and one germinoma). All these patients required hormone substitution already preoperatively. One patient in the series presented with the signs of growth hormone excess, high IGF-1 values (765 ng/ml), and amenorrhea before surgery (the GH-secreting adenoma). In one patient with a Rathke cleft cyst, a moderate hyperprolactinemia (98.2 mcg/l) was observed. The remaining patients did not show any signs or symptoms of endocrine dysregulation preoperatively. After surgery, panhypopituitarism was observed in the same three patients in whom it was present preoperatively, the hyperprolactinemia was normalized in the Rathke cyst patient, and the growth hormone excess was relieved (also the amenorrhea). One craniopharyngioma patient showed symptoms of diabetes insipidus with polyuria and hypernatremia, which was treated with administration of desmopressin necessary only for a short period of time. In summary, there was no significant change in the endocrine situation in comparison to the preoperative status.

The mean follow-up was 89.1 ± 79.4 months (range: 12–253.3 months). One patient needed further transcranial surgery during follow-up for other tumor locations. In two cases, a post-surgical radiotherapy was indicated, which was decided by the multidisciplinary pediatric neurooncological team, because of persistent tumor and ongoing disease dynamics (one craniopharyngioma and one germinoma). The patient with the germinoma required additional chemotherapy according to protocol guidelines. The aneurysmatic bone cyst was subsequently treated with a targeted therapy. For the entire cohort, we registered one ongoing progressive disease (craniopharyngioma), 4 stable diseases, and 8 complete remissions.

Endoscopic-assisted endonasal surgery has been increasingly employed over the past two decades, and its development was mainly focused on providing better optics and improved instruments and accelerating the learning curve of young surgeons. In terms of visualization technologies, high-resolution image acquisition and 3D technology applied to the endoscopic vision have been developed [27, 29]. Furthermore, in order to enhance the orientation during surgery the combination of navigation together with endoscopy is established; however, being limited to pointer navigation functionality during surgery. Our study reports for the first time experience of using augmented reality (AR)-assisted navigated transnasal endoscopic neurosurgical procedures in a pediatric patient cohort. With the current study, we have shown feasibility of the technology and improvement in better presentation of relevant surgical information to surgeon during intervention. Using the same technologies in the context of intraventricular endoscopic interventions, we were previously able to proof accuracy of the procedure [12]. The use of AR in skull base surgery has previously been described in microsurgical procedures [2, 8, 28]. A recent meta-analysis on the subject has shown that the limited amount of experience so far does not allow conclusions to be drawn about the superiority of conventional neuronavigation compared to AR neuronavigation systems [11]. The latest applications of AR in cranial surgery even include calvarial remodeling in children with craniosynostosis [15] and vascular neurosurgery [23]. To date, the use of AR in endoscopic transnasal approaches has been studied only in ENT surgeries [3, 30, 31]. As already described by Winne et al. [30] from the ENT’s point of view, overlay visualization of the elaborated surgical target and the navigation-calibrated endoscope represent a valuable and safe instrument to improve the surgical performances in endoscopic endonasal procedures. The intraoperative support consists of the simultaneous visualization of the endoscope’s position on standard axial, sagittal, and coronal MRI views as well as trajectory-aligned reconstruction of MR imaging on the navigation screen. At the same time, the endoscope’s screen displays the anatomical landmarks, thus offering the possibility to check the precision of the plan. AR combines the information of the two sources, the video and the navigation making it possible to directly relate the surgical field and to the preoperative planning overcoming the additional effort of interpreting MRI data in relation to the surgical field [3, 9, 12, 17].

Until now there are only limited reports in the literature about the combination of navigation and AR to enhance transnasal endoscopic neurosurgery. The largest cohort consisting of 313 adult patients was described by Caversaccio et al. [3] and was mainly composed of nasal pathologies. A more recent study covers 134 anterior skull base endoscopic procedures (from pituitary adenomas to sinusal pathologies) in an adult population [31]. Other authors focus their preliminary work on cadaveric studies of 14 and 15 specimens, respectively, in which endoscopic endonasal approaches were combined to the use of an AR navigation tool [9, 20]. Two further studies report experiences on 12 and 5 adult patients, treating pituitary and craniocervical junction pathologies, respectively [7, 17] (Table 2).

Literature reports on children treated by means of an endoscopic skull base approach are sparse, with the largest study consisting of 133 patients [5], followed by a 28-patient retrospective study [8], both of which describing a relatively homogeneous spectrum of pathologies. As already discussed in relation to complications, in fact, the most common endoscopically treated conditions that are described are encephalocele, meningoencephalocele [4, 8, 10, 22, 24], and pituitary adenomas [5, 16, 21, 25]. It is, however, described that a broader range of pathological entities results in a higher rate of complications [5, 18]. Whether the endoscopic method is preferred over the microscopic technique depends mainly on the surgeon’s experience and comfort. Both choices, when routinely performed, are associated with comparable rates of success and complications [19].

Generally, the rate of complications in endoscopically treated children with sellar lesions appears to be higher compared with adults. This may be due to the pathology spectrum involving the sellar and parasellar regions in children is quite variable and our cohort reflects this heterogeneity. The histopathological diagnosis comprises rare and sometimes relatively aggressive diseases. We observed that two out of three patients in our series with postoperative issues had a long history of multiple surgeries and repeated recurrence of the underlying pathology. In one case, a patient with a craniopharyngioma with multiple previous transcranial surgeries as well as radiotherapy sessions developed a local abscess, which was treated successfully by evacuation and antibiotic therapy. The other patient was operated for an osteochondromyxoma and developed a CSF leak after surgery that was handled with an endoscopic endonasal repair through a turbinate mucoperiosteal flap. The patient turned out to have an idiopathic intracranial hypertension requiring a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt during follow-up. In our series, long- and short-term neurological complications as well as nasal disturbances were not observed, similarly to other experiences reported in literature. A multidisciplinary approach together with ENT surgeons focuses on the goal to keep the approach as minimal invasive as possible.

The use of AR-assisted neuronavigation in endoscopic skull base approaches is representing a helpful adjunct, which has not yet been routinely and systematically introduced in this neurosurgical field. This application appears to be particularly beneficial when performing endoscopic surgery in children, because of the variable vascular, nervous and bony anatomy, as well as rare pathologies in this population. Further investigation, also articulated with more homogenous pathologies, is necessary to prove its benefits for the clinical outcome of the patients. The technique is not widely available yet and needs further development to enable routine use on a broader basis.