Abstract BACKGROUND Improve quality of life with a maximum surgical resection is the main goal of neurosurgeons. Brain metastasis are even more prevalent because of patients are living more. The grade of resection and the maintenance of a good performance are fundamental for these patients perform adjuvant radiotherapy. There are several technologies that may help. Considering two of them that have an easier access and are cheaper, we compared a high definition ultrasound (BK 3000) coupled to neuronavigation system (Brainlab) and sodium fluorescein (SF). METHODS Adult patients with main radiological hypothesis of brain metastasis were included in a PhD study previously approved by ethics committee. 3-5mg/kg of SF was administered by intravenous infusion during anesthetic induction. An specific craniotomy transducer was used in all cases with shift correction in real time by neuronavigator. All procedures were guided by the same neurosurgeon. RESULTS High definition ultrasound allows an excellent tumor delimitation. SF helped to increase grade of resection however made confusion about what is infiltration and what is tumor and for this ultrasound were superior. Increased fluorescence is easily detected when compared to ultrasound information’s.. For both technologies, when the surgical site had blood, the evaluation about grade of resection is not accurate because in ultrasound appears a posterior shadow and considering SF it seems that there are not further tumor because blood does not have increased fluorescence. CONCLUSIONS US and SF are different tools which improve brain metastasis resection. In each moment of surgery one technology was superior or not. We used an specific probe for neurosurgery that has high quality and allowed detailed evaluations. These technologies helps surgeons take quick decision and optimized brain tumor removal. The neurosurgeon should be more familiar to US images because provide a real time evaluation with low cost.
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