SPANISH

Abstract

Transsphenoidal surgery is currently the treatment of choice for most sellar and parasellar lesions. With the recent development of extended transsphenoidal approaches and the use of endoscopy applied to skull base surgery, transsphenoidal surgery has evolved its current indications from paranasal sinuses to the purely endoscopic resection of suprasellar and parasellar lesions such as pituitary adenomas, craniopharyngiomas, meningiomas, chordomas, estesioneuroblastomas, and even anterior and posterior circulation brain aneurysms.

            We present a time based description of the evolution of initial transsphenoidal surgery to endoscopic endonasal skull base surgery, since its beginnings with transcranial and transfacial approaches to the more recent purely endoscopic endonasal extended approach.