Role of Endoscopic Third Ventriculostomy in Management of Malfunctioning Ventriculoperitoneal Shunt

Cerebrospinal fluid shunting remains the most common line of treatment for hydrocephalus. Endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) is an alternative to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunting that is potentially favorable due to the lack of implanted hardware. Most previous studies of ETV have focused on its role as an initial treatment for hydrocephalus and on comparing ETV with CSF shunting. However ,some patients who have previously been treated with a CSF shunt then developed malfunction are candidate for ETV.

The ETV Success Score (ETVSS) is the most widely used scale to estimate the likelihood of ETV success for a given patient .

Although the age of the patient is the most important component of the ETVSS, history of previous treatment with a shunt is also included in the model. According to the ETVSS, previous shunting reduces the likelihood of ETV success by approximately 10%.

There have been numerous previous studies of ETV in patients with a history of a CSF shunt (post shunt ETV), reporting success rates from 50% to 80% . Two review articles also covered this topic, one of which reported ETV success by meta-analysis in 68% of 519 pooled patients .

Most patients with shunt malfunction and or infection are treated with revision procedures, but ETV can be used as an alternative treatment in such cases .The role of endoscopic management of hydrocephalus in shunt malfunction was not investigated extensively so far.