Biopsy of thalamic lesions using computed imaging-assisted stereotaxis: report of 15 years of experience

Obtaining tissue specimen for pathological diagnosis in small or deeply-seated intracranial lesions is critical to guide therapy and prevent unnecessary interventions. To present the experience of our unit with stereotactic procedures. Consecutive stereotactic intracranial biopsy procedures of the thalamus performed between July 1988 and August 2003 were studied in this retrospective review. Clinical, imaging, and histopathological data were reviewed for all patients. Two hundred eighty-eight patients (177 males and 111 females) with a median age of 31 (interquartile range: 24.5) years were studied. Successful (positive) histologic diagnoses were achieved in 264 (91.7%) patients. No mortality was associated with this procedure. Thalamic lesions can be biopsied stereotactically with an acceptable complication rate and a high diagnostic yield.