A 3D stereotactic atlas of the adult human skull base

Wieslaw L Nowinski,Thant S L Thaung

doi:10.1186/s40708-018-0082-1

Abstract

BackgroundThe skull base region is anatomically complex and poses surgical challenges. Although many textbooks describe this region illustrated well with drawings, scans and photographs, a complete, 3D, electronic, interactive, realistic, fully segmented and labeled, and stereotactic atlas of the skull base has not yet been built. Our goal is to create a 3D electronic atlas of the adult human skull base along with interactive tools for structure manipulation, exploration, and quantification.MethodsMultiple in vivo 3/7 T MRI and high-resolution CT scans of the same normal, male head specimen have been acquired. From the scans, by employing dedicated tools and modeling techniques, 3D digital virtual models of the skull, brain, cranial nerves, intra- and extracranial vasculature have earlier been constructed. Integrating these models and developing a browser with dedicated interaction, the skull base atlas has been built.ResultsThis is the first, to our best knowledge, truly 3D atlas of the adult human skull base that has been created, which includes a fully parcellated and labeled brain, skull, cranial nerves, and intra- and extracranial vasculature.ConclusionThis atlas is a useful aid in understanding and teaching spatial relationships of the skull base anatomy, a helpful tool to generate teaching materials, and a component of any skull base surgical simulator.

Highlights

The base of skull, or skull base, forms the floor of the cranial cavity and separates the brain from other structures of the face and neck
The base of skull separates the intracranial content and the facial compartment from the upper respiratory and digestive tracts, but it enables the passage of vital neurovascular structures entering and exiting the brain
The skull base has been comprehensively described in many textbooks [2,3,4], Gray’s anatomy [5,6,7], and print atlases [1, 8, 9]

Summary

Introduction

The base of skull, or skull base, forms the floor of the cranial cavity and separates the brain from other structures of the face and neck. The skull base region is available in some electronic atlases of the head and neck [10,11,12,13,14] These applications vary from medical illustrations to animations to limited three-dimensional (3D) models. Photo Atlas of Skull Base Dissection by Wanibuchi et al [9] is a richly illustrative textbook that contains high-quality photographs of cadaveric dissections with comprehensive anatomical views. The content can be viewed as user predefined cuttings of the skull base region only, without providing

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