Surgical management of cranial base tumors: a report on 91 patients.

Most cranial base tumors are now treatable by surgery because of recent advances, including the precision of modern diagnostic and interventional radiology. In the past two years, the authors have treated 91 patients with tumors involving the cranial base; over 60% were malignant. Most patients underwent a combined intracranial-extracranial procedure for tumor removal with immediate reconstruction. The complication rate was under 10% and most patients (more than 80%) are tumor-free in follow-up of 2-24 months. While cranial base surgery is now established as a field of surgical oncology, its true benefit to patients with tumors in this location, measured in five and 10-year tumor-free survival, cannot yet be determined.