Developing a new transparent sheath for endoscopic third ventriculostomy in treating hydrocephalus patients.

Abstract

The sheath is a crucial piece of equipment during endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV). However, the normally used metal sheath can not provide clear images around the tube. We developed a new transparent sheath (TS) in order to overcome the inherent disadvantages of the metal sheath (MS). Between August 2010 and February 2013, a total of 120 hydrocephalus patients received ETV in our hospital. Patients were retrospectively divided into two groups, the transparent sheath group (TSG) and metal sheath group (MSG). The success rate of the first puncture, the operative time and the incidence of complications were used to compare the efficiency between transparent sheath and metal sheath. There were 32 patients in the TSG and 88 patients in the MSG. The success rate of the first puncture was 100% in the TSG and 87.5% in the MSG, respectively (p= 0.036). The operative time of the TSG was significant shorter than the MSG (p= 0.001). While the incidence of complications was similar between the two groups (p= 0.757). Compared with the tranditional metal sheath, the newly developed transparent sheath for ETV is more efficient and showed lower risk. This may be explained by the better surgical view of the whole puncture channel provide by the TS.