• Jeffrey P Greenfield, William S Cobb, A John Tsouris, and Theodore H Schwartz.
• Department of Neurological Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, New York, USA.
• Neurosurgery. 2008 Oct 1;63(4 Suppl 2):334-9; discussion 339-40.

ObjectiveDeep-seated supratentorial intraparenchymal and intraventricular brain lesions can be difficult to access without causing significant trauma to the overlying cortex and intervening white matter tracts. Traditional brain retractors use multiple blades, which do not exert pressure in an equally distributed fashion. Tubular retractors offer an advantage. Although a commercially available frame-based tubular retractor system is on the market (COMPASS; Compass, Inc., Rochester, MN), we modified existing off-the-shelf equipment at our institution into a frameless tubular brain retractor.MethodsWe used 14- to 22-mm METRx (Medtronic, Minneapolis, MN) tubular retractors in combination with a frameless stereotactic navigation system to remove 10 deep lesions. Histological findings included 6 periventricular metastases, 1 insular glioblastoma multiforme, 1 periventricular glioblastoma multiforme, 1 intraventricular meningioma, and 1 hippocampal cavernous malformation.ResultsRadiographic gross total resection was achieved in all patients. One patient experienced a transient worsening of an existing preoperative Wernicke's aphasia; otherwise, there were no intra- or postoperative complications. One patient with radiographic gross total resection of a metastatic lesion experienced a local recurrence of disease, requiring stereotactic radiosurgery.ConclusionA frameless stereotactic tubular retractor system for deep brain lesions can be assembled with equipment already available at many institutions. Use of this system can decrease incision and craniotomy size, decrease retractor-induced trauma to overlying cortex, and help prevent damage to underlying white matter tracts.

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