Endoscopic third ventriculostomy for obstructive hydrocephalus: Outcome analysis of 120 consecutively treated patients from a developing country

• Neurosurgical centers in developed countries report good outcomes with ETV.
• Surgeons in developing world are reluctant to perform ETV for many reasons.
• Advanced endoscopy training/equipment is required to do this challenging surgery.
• We report ETV's safety and utility in a large series from a developing country.
• ETV can replace VP shunts for treating hydrocephalus in developing countries.

ObjectivesEndoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) for the treatment of obstructive hydrocephalus is a relatively new concept amongst neurosurgeons of the developing world. Therefore, this study was conducted to report our experience, patient selection, success rates and complications of ETV and compare our results with the literature from the developed countries.MethodsWe performed ETV on 120 patients at our centre and prospectively collected their clinical data on pre designed questionnaires. Success was defined as clinical improvement on 3rd month post operative clinic visit. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 20.ResultsThere were 79 male and 41 female patients. The mean age was 36.1 ± 14.3 years. Overall, ETV was successful in 107 (89.2%) of patients. 4 patients had intra operative bleeding, 4 patients developed CSF leaks while 1 patient had a transient gaze palsy. There was no mortality.ConclusionETV is a very effective treatment modality for treating obstructive hydrocephalus in well selected patients and can be successfully practiced by neurosurgeons in the developing countries.