Three‐dimensional printing to compare endoscopic endonasal surgical approaches: A technical note
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Choosing the best approach for selected pathologies is always source of debates and controversies, whatever the surgical speciality. In endoscopic endonasal surgery (EES), most of surgical series have compared their outcomes with conventional procedures to assess their safety and efficacy. However, there are few objective ways to compare the technical advantages of one approach versus another. Nowadays, it is possible to generate surgical models of skull base anatomy in several identical samples thanks to the three‐dimensional (3D) printers.1 In this study, authors present an objective method to compare the operative field provided by different EES techniques, taking the example of transsphenoidal surgery.
Choosing the best approach for selected pathologies is always source of debates and controversies, whatever the surgical speciality. In endoscopic endonasal surgery (EES), most of surgical series have compared their outcomes with conventional procedures to assess their safety and efficacy. However, there are few objective ways to compare the technical advantages of one approach versus another. Nowadays, it is possible to generate surgical models of skull base anatomy in several identical samples thanks to the three‐dimensional (3D) printers.1 In this study, authors present an objective method to compare the operative field provided by different EES techniques, taking the example of transsphenoidal surgery.