Minimally Invasive Endoscopic Interventions in the Treatment for Traumatic Intracranial Hematomas

Traumatic brain injuries are a global problem, with more than 50 million people suffering from brain injuries every year. A frequent consequence of severe traumatic brain injury is intracranial hematoma (ICH), causing mortality, disability, post-traumatic epilepsy. ICH has different clinical manifestations and physical characteristics. Standard treatment for ICH includes conservative monitoring for small volume hematomas or surgical evacuation of the hematoma. Craniotomy is often used to remove hematomas, because acute and subacute hematomas contain clots, and drainage of the hematoma cavity alone is not enough. In chronic hematomas, drainage through a hole is usually used, but this is effective only if the hematoma is represented by one cavity and its contents are completely liquid, which is not always the case. Thus, widely used techniques do not always meet modern requirements for effectiveness and low invasiveness of surgical treatment.

The review considers endoscopic methods of surgical treatment for all variants of traumatic ICH; 31 publications have been found on this topic, mentioning 602 interventions. Differences in patient selection criteria make it difficult to compare the methods and outcomes. From the technical point of view, the procedures were also very diverse. The article analyzes the main features of different authors’ methods.

None of the authors comes to the conclusion about outcome worsening after endoscopic intervention. With regard to acute and subacute hematomas, there are currently no reliable statistical data, but the results obtained can generally be assessed as positive.

In acute and subacute hematomas, endoscopic intervention is perceived by the authors not as providing more opportunities, but only as a less invasive replacement for conventional craniotomy. In chronic hematomas, endoscopic intervention is considered to have more opportunities and advantages over the standard treatment.

At present, the widespread use of endoscopic minimally invasive methods of surgical treatment for traumatic hematomas is hampered mainly by the lack of clear criteria for selecting patients and well-established methods of intervention. More high-quality research is needed to determine the role of these methods in general clinical practice.

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