Abstract
Since January 1983, 51 cases of brain tumors have been operated in our clinic. We employed carbon dioxide laser in operation 17 cases of them. Histologically, meningioma were the most (11cases), followed by glioma (3cases), pineal teratoma (2cases), and metastatic brain tumor (1case).
Carbon dioxide laser has been the following surgical usefulness. 1) It is non-contact surgical unit as a “laser beam”; 2) enable to vanish the tumor by vaporization effect in focused beam, and 3) has coagulation effect by defocused beam. If we can utilize skillfully, being well aware of these peculialities, we can make it easy to remove 1) huge, 2) deep seated, 3) hard, and 4) vascular rich tumors, which is impossible or difficult to remove with conventional technique.
We presented 2 cases of huge pineal teratoma that were totally removed with CO2 laser. In infratentorial supracerebellar approach for these located tumor, CSF and blood are drained spontaneously so the advantage of CO2 laser is fully employed.
