Gliomas of the optic nerve, visual pathway, and hypothalamus are treated as a single entity, being considered benign neoplasms in pediatric age, grade I according to the WHO. 25% of them are confined to the optic nerve, 40-75% involve the optic chiasm, and 33-60% are posterior lesions. Most do not present symptoms, but in the case of presenting, the most frequent is loss of vision. The gold standard for diagnosis is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast. The first line of treatment is chemotherapy, with surgery used for nerve decompression, if necessary.

Neural tube defects (NTD) are congenital malformations that are caused by the lack of fusion of the neural tube during the embryonic period, exposing the nervous tissue to the outside. There are different types, and they can be cranial (anencephaly and encephalocele) and spinal (spina bifida). The encephalocele is a protrusion or herniation of the intracranial content, through the bony defect of the skull. In this article, we report the case of a patient diagnosed with occipital encephalocele, while reviewing the neurosurgical treatment performed in our hospital.

Robotic technology has helped medicine to reduce exposure time and offer greater efficiency and precision in surgical interventions. The goal of using an articulated robotic arm for X-ray (Rx) guided minimally invasive surgery and interventional assistance is to reduce direct and secondary radiation on physicians. The use of a collaborative robotic arm (COBOT) that replaces the operating arm of the surgeon-interventionist physician to avoid exposure to X-rays is described.

Acute spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage is a life-threatening disease of global importance, with a poor prognosis and few effective treatments. For supratentorial intracerebral hemorrhage, early evacuation (<24 hours after hemorrhage onset) with standard craniotomy is considered lifesaving in deteriorating patients. In cases where the hemorrhage is less than 1 cm from the cortical surface, the clinical benefit is even greater.

Problems with appearance may negatively affect the mental health of individuals with disfigurement so, cranioplasty has an important role in improving the physical appearance of patients as well as their psychological symptoms. This study aims to highlight the aesthetic as well as the psychological outcomes of cranioplasty using the two most widely used synthetic graft materials; polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and titanium mesh.

We did not find national reports on ruptured aneurysms treated in the context of the pandemic, this being one of the first studies that demonstrate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with ruptured intracranial aneurysm. The population should be educated on how to act in case of specific symptoms such as sudden intense headache, neurological deficit, or acute chest pain, which should receive timely care, immediate referral, and priority of treatment in referral hospitals in order to reduce morbidity and mortality of complex neurological pathologies.

The alteration at the anatomical and/or functional level, both motors, sensory and cognitive, a product of the sudden exchange of mechanical energy caused by an external force on the skull, is what defines a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Clinical observation in mild TBI includes observing children under 2 years of age with trauma without fracture or admission criteria clinically for 2 to 4 hours and observing children with symptoms or mechanism of fall for 4 to 6 hours not known. We studied mild TBI at Baca Ortiz Pediatric Hospital, Ecuador, from January 2016 to December 2019.

Petroclival meningiomas constitute 3 to 10% of meningiomas of the posterior fossa, they originate in the petroclival fissure, in the upper part of the clivus, petrosal apex, and medial to the trigeminal nerve. Resection of these tumors is a neurosurgical challenge. The combined partial petrosectomy approach associated with a sub-temporal approach is a technique described by various authors; however, its performance is considered highly complex. We report the case of a petroclival meningioma operated successfully in our hospital using this combined approach. 

Orbital schwannoma is a rare pathology, which constitutes approximately 1 to 6.5% of orbital tumors, and can originate from the ophthalmic branch of the 5th cranial nerve or from perioptic sympathetic nerves. The first-line treatment is surgery, and total resection provides a good prognosis.  We presented a case of 12-year-old woman, with a 9-year illness, characterized by a progressive decrease in right visual acuity until reaching amaurosis.