Transpetrosal Approach with Partial Labyrinthectomy for Hearing Preservation: Technical Note and Case Report

The transpetrosal transtentorial supra- and infratentorial combined approach has been used by many skull base surgeons for the total removal of large tumors in the cerebellopontine, petroclival, and dumbbell-shaped mass of the middle and posterior cranial bases. When surgeons use the retrolabyrinthine approach for hearing preservation, adequate exposure of the presigmoid dura might be hard to achive. In order to get a wider operating field with hearing preservation, the authors used the transpetrosal approach with partial labyrinthectomy for a large dermoid cyst in the cerebellopontine angle which extened to the middle cranial base through the Meckel's cave.