Retractorless bifrontal craniotomy with pericranial flap for post-traumatic anterior skull base CSF leak: technique description

Neurosurgical technique paper describes a standardised retractorless bifrontal craniotomy approach—pericranial flap harvest, frontal sinus obliteration, bilateral olfactory nerve dissection, intradural repair—for traumatic anterior fossa CSF fistulas. Outcomes quantified only qu…

• Design: 'How I do it' technique description (no control arm, no sample size or outcome statistics reported in source); primary value is operative standardisation, not efficacy measurement.
• Key technical points: surgery is timed after cerebral swelling resolves with concurrent CSF drainage; retractorless technique is said to reduce frontal lobe contusion risk—no comparative complication rates provided.
• Critical limitation: no quantitative outcomes (CSF leak recurrence, meningitis rate, morbidity figures) are reported in the abstract; external validity and reproducibility unestablished.

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