Abstract:Objective To explore and summarize the risk factors and protective strategies of cerebellar traction injury in acoustic neuroma surgery.Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on clinical data of 46 patients with primary acoustic neuroma who underwent surgical treatment in our department from January 2020 to May 2023. There were 22 males and 24 females, with an average age of (51.4±16.5) years. The lesions were located on the left side in 20 cases and on the right side in 26. The average tumor diameter was (32±10.8) mm, and the average operation time was 5 hours and 20 minutes. Craniotomy was performed in all patients via suboccipital retrosigmoid approach. During the craniotomy, 33 cases underwent layer-by-layer muscle incision combined with dissection of musculi rectus capitis posterior major, while 13 cases received conventional incision without dissection of musculi rectus capitis posterior major. About one week after surgery, all patients underwent head magnetic resonance imaging examination, T2 and liquid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) phases were used to evaluate whether the cerebellum was pulled and damaged.Results There were no postoperative deaths and no vertebral artery injuries in all patients. Early postoperative magnetic resonance imaging examinations of the 46 patients indicated that 14 (30.4%) had cerebellar traction injury. Of them, 7 cases (21.2%) were from the 33 patients with dissection of musculi rectus capitis posterior major, and 7 (53.8%) from the 13 cases without dissection of musculi rectus capitis posterior major. Spearman’s multi-factor correlation analysis showed a statistically significant correlation between cerebellar traction injury and whether the musculi rectus capitis posterior major was dissected during craniotomy in acoustic neuroma surgery (P<0.05). There were no correlations between cerebellar traction injury and tumor laterality, patient’s age, maximum tumor diameter, and operation time (P>0.05).Conclusion During craniotomy in acoustic neuroma surgery, dissection of musculi rectus capitis posterior major can expand the exposure scope under bone flap, thus facilitate releasing cerebrospinal fluid from the foramen magnum region and reducing the risk of cerebellar traction injury.