Practical Application of Intraoperative Imaging

The practical applications of intraoperative US imaging can be divided into two categories: guidance for stereotactic interventions (see also p. 152), and anatomical orientation during conventional neurosurgical operations [6, 7, 11, 22, 24, 32, 33, 37, 43, 46, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 61, 67]. It may often be reassuring for the surgeon to confirm that the tumor is indeed in the expected location before the dura is opened; in some instances, it may then be possible to operate through a smaller dural opening than would otherwise have been necessary. Moreover, transdural imaging will help improve spatial orientation as it visualizes the underlying brain and enables the surgeon to imagine the lateral and central borders of lesions more clearly. Foreign bodies like wood, bone and metal can be visualized; especially metal can be expected to be seen more clearly on US than on CT [14].