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Review
. 2023 Aug 28;13(9):1822.
doi: 10.3390/life13091822.

Quantitative Anatomical Studies in Neurosurgery: A Systematic and Critical Review of Research Methods

Edoardo Agosti  1 , Lucio De Maria  1   2 , Pier Paolo Mattogno  3 , Giuseppe Maria Della Pepa  3 , Ginevra Federica D'Onofrio  4 , Alessandro Fiorindi  1 , Liverana Lauretti  3   4 , Alessandro Olivi  3   4 , Marco Maria Fontanella  1 , Francesco Doglietto  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Quantitative Anatomical Studies in Neurosurgery: A Systematic and Critical Review of Research Methods

Edoardo Agosti et al. Life (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: The anatomy laboratory can provide the ideal setting for the preclinical phase of neurosurgical research. Our purpose is to comprehensively and critically review the preclinical anatomical quantification methods used in cranial neurosurgery.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. The PubMed, Ovid MEDLINE, and Ovid EMBASE databases were searched, yielding 1667 papers. A statistical analysis was performed using R.

Results: The included studies were published from 1996 to 2023. The risk of bias assessment indicated high-quality studies. Target exposure was the most studied feature (81.7%), mainly with area quantification (64.9%). The surgical corridor was quantified in 60.9% of studies, more commonly with the quantification of the angle of view (60%). Neuronavigation-based methods benefit from quantifying the surgical pyramid features that define a cranial neurosurgical approach and allowing post-dissection data analyses. Direct measurements might diminish the error that is inherent to navigation methods and are useful to collect a small amount of data.

Conclusion: Quantifying neurosurgical approaches in the anatomy laboratory provides an objective assessment of the surgical corridor and target exposure. There is currently limited comparability among quantitative neurosurgical anatomy studies; sharing common research methods will provide comparable data that might also be investigated with artificial intelligence methods.

Keywords: anatomical studies; comparison; neurosurgical approach; quantification; research method.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. All co-authors have seen and agree with the contents of the manuscript and there is no financial interest to report.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram depicting the literature search process [6].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Timeline depicting the evolution of neurosurgical approaches quantification and comparison.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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