Abstract:

Objective   To quantitatively evaluated the feasibility of digitalized skull base surgery by comparing the corresponding accuracy of anatomical, imageology and neuronavigator based measurements. Methods   Distance between the anterior semicircular canal and the oval foramen of 25 cadaver skull bases (50 sides) were measured with caliper (an anatomical measurement), CT (an imageology base measurement) and neuronavigator (a neuronavigator based measurement), respectively. The data were documented and the accuracy of three different methods of measurement was statistically analyzed with Spss19.0 software. Results   ① The mean deviation of anatomical measurement was larger than that of the imageology based measurement from the corresponding mean of anatomical measurement(P＜0.01); ② The mean deviation of the neuronavigator based measurement was larger than that of the imageology based measurement from the mean of anatomical measurement (P＜0.01); ③ The mean deviation of the neuronavigator based measurement from the mean of anatomical measurement was a little bit larger than that of the anatomical measurement, whereas the P value (90%) was larger than 0.8. Conclusion   ① The data from imageology based measurement are more accurate than those from group-based anatomical measurement in evaluating individual anatomical characteristics; ② Errors occurred during registration and application will compromise the accuracy of a neuronavigator to a more or less extent; ③ Statistically equivalent accuracy is undeniable(the power of the test was as high as 90%)between the anatomical and neuronavigator based measurements, even if deviations from the latter are inevitable.

Key words: Neuronavigator； Skull base surgery, Measurement