A retrospective study identified 34 cases (12 men and 19 women) of tumors in patients who had undergone surgical resection of pathologically confirmed CBTs over a period of 10 years from 2001 to 2011 in 2 academic departments of general surgery in Italy.
In our series, 10 CBTs (31%) were Shamblin class I, 13 (41%) were class II, and 9 tumors (27%) were class III. Two patients (6%) had transient cerebral ischemia immediately after operation. One patient (3%) died of postoperative cerebral ischemia after surgery for internal carotid artery thrombosis.
The experience of this casuistry shows that the procedure is relatively low risk for Shamblin I and II classes, whereas there is an increasing risk of neurovascular complications for Shamblin III class.