Perioperative intensive care in patients with brain tumours

The surgery of brain tumours is not free from complications, above all taking into account that today the patients operated are even older and with multiple comorbidities associated. The multidisciplinary preoperative evaluation aims at minimising the risks; nevertheless this evaluation has not yet been defined and is not based on a strong evidence. The detailed clinical history, the physical examination including functional status and the neuroimaging are the fundamental pillars. The more critical complications occur in the immediate postoperative period: cerebral oedema, postoperative haemorrhage, intracranial hypertension and convulsions; other complications, such as pulmonary thromboembolism or infections, develop lately but are not less severe. Every surgical approach has its own complications in addition to the ones common to the whole neurosurgery.