History of the Skull Base Surgery

Abstract

The history of the skull base surgery was reviewed. The modern techniques of the skull base surgery have been developed in the last 50 years, and the term “Skull Base Surgery” became popular around 1980. The epidural approach is one of the key concepts of the skull base surgery and the trigeminal schwannoma arising in the Meckel’s cave is the best candidate for the epidural subtemporal approach. Although this approach had been established in the last 20 years, this epidural access route was described in 1900 by Cushing. The recent advances of the surgical and diagnostic tools have made the skull base surgery safe and popular, but it is amazing that the idea of skull base surgery was described more than 100 years ago.