Risks of Surgery

Risks involved in meningioma surgery include:

1. Infection (1%)
2. Excessive bleeding during surgery requiring transfusion (1-3 %, depending on the tumor size and the extent/severity of tumor blood supply)
3. Postoperative bleeding in or around the brain surgery site, requiring re-operation (<1%)
4. Seizures (3-5%, associated with any brain surgery other than posterior fossa surgery)
5. Stroke (1-3%, depending on the tumor size, location, adherence to the surrounding blood vessel)
   1. Symptoms/deficits depend on the extent and location of stroke
6. Direct brain injury or worsening postoperative brain swelling (extremely rare, <<1%)
   1. Symptoms/deficits depend on the extent and location of brain injury
7. Cranial nerve injury (1-3%, depending on the tumor size, location, adherence to the surrounding cranial nerves)
   1. Symptoms/deficits depend on the specific cranial nerves involved:
   2. Loss of smell, blindness, double vision, facial numbness, hearing loss, facial weakness, hoarseness, swallowing difficulty, weak cough, tongue/shoulder weakness
   3. CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) leak (depending on the tumor’s skull base location, <1%-3%)
8. Inflammatory reaction (“chemical meningitis”) to an artificial dural graft when used (2-3% of patients with artificial dural graft usage)
9. Persistent postoperative headache around the incision (rare, ~1%)
10. Postoperative medical problems (1-3%, depending on the patient’s age, health, length of surgery, postoperative mobility)
    1. Urinary tract infection
    2. Pneumonia
    3. Deep venous thrombosis (DVT)/pulmonary embolism (PE)
    4. Myocardial infarction (MI)