Multidisciplinary therapeutic approach for giant prolactinomas in paediatric patients can be an effective treatment; despite the invasiveness of these tumours, the efficacy of this combined treatment can reach a satisfactory control of the disease at long term, assuring a good quality of life as well.

The intra-operative use of "bleomycin-wax" should be limited to those patients in whom intra-operative CSF fistula does not occur.

Diaphragma sellae meningiomas represent a difficult challenge for neurosurgeons; they are generally operated on by a transcranial approach. Some authors reported transsphenoidal surgery in selected cases, but without accurately focusing the surgical technique that should be necessary for removing the typical hard fibrous tissue of the meningioma, that is not aspirable, by this approach. We present the surgical technique and the useful instrumentarium for removing a diaphragma sellae meningioma through an extended microsurgical transsphenoidal approach.

a b s t r a c tObjective: A modified transsphenoidal technique to remove huge pituitary adenomas with marked suprasellar extension (4.5-8 cm of maximum diameter) is presented. Methods:The technique allowed to avoid the occurrence of a precocious descent of the suprasellar cisternal plane into the sellar plane during tumour removal and its related consequences (incomplete tumour removal, occurrence of cerebrospinal fluid leak, prolonged time of postoperative stay in hospital). Technique is performed opening at the beginning only the lateral parts of peritumoral dura mater, leaving the central part of the dura mater in support of the central part of tumour and suprasellar cisternal plane. After removal of lateral parts of the tumour, the central part of peritumoral dura mater is opened and the central intra-and supra-sellar parts of the tumour are removed. Results: Total removal was accomplished in 64% and 45% in groups two and one respectively. Intraoperative CSF leak occurred in 2.4% and 22.5% respectively in groups two and one. Postoperative CSF fistula did not occur in group two, while it occurred in 7.4% of patients of group one. Average time of postoperative stay in hospital was 4.3 and 8.2 days in groups two and one respectively. Conclusion: The presented modified transsphenoidal microsurgical technique for removal of huge pituitary adenomas allowed to achieve better results than patients operated by standard transsphenoidal surgery.

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