FAR LATERAL APPROACH

The far lateral approach is an inferolateral extension of the lateral suboccipital approach. Introduced for the treatment of the vertebrobasilar junction and proximal posterior-inferior cerebellar artery aneurysms, over the years, it has also become a workhorse approach for ventral foramen magnum meningiomas and, generally, intradural extra-axial lesions located anterior to the dentate ligament. In this chapter, we review the technical steps of the far lateral approach, also focusing on its transcondylar, supracondylar, and paracondylar extensions.