Microsurgery of Cerebral Veins

A description of cerebral veins under operative­ versely, where there are large arterial vessel stems (at the base of the brain) the veins somewhat lose their technical aspects is practically a description of opera­ significance. They become important again in the tive approaches and their obstruction by cerebral region of the basal Dura, the Tentorium, and the Falx veins. It is this which constitutes the major difference but (with the exception of the region of the Sinus between arteries and veins. The arteries of the brain originate from only four large vessel stems, which cavernosus) away from the large arterial stems. This justifies writing a microneurosurgical textbook exclu­ bridge the CSF space and then run along the surface sively under the aspect of the cerebral veins. of the brain or inside the brain. Arterial vessels hardly interfere with operative approaches, even in the deep That we know so much about cerebral veins is due CSF spaces such as the Sylvian fissure, the Tentorium primarily to the work of neuroradiologists. It is not fissure, and the ventricle system. Veins, on the other the objective of the present volume to provide a hand, can appear in almost every location of the brain compreherisive and comparative survey of the large as so-called bridging veins. They are extremely vari­ number of individual results of attempts at establish­ able and can bloc~ the approach to deep CSF spaces ing vein types.