We do not have all the details from that article. It might have been causing headaches or double vision for example. Partial resection was likely very good here. It's generally very slow growing. If it had grown to cause trouble later nuclear surgery could have been a more appropriate option at that point. The craniotomy approaches are what have those percentages you outlined, loss of vision, smell, or taste, as well as difficulty with speech can be complications depending on the approach used. Basically the brain has to be moved away and that causes trauma to nerves as well as which facial muscles need to be cut depending on the approach.

This new approach is intriguing. Expected anatomy would have a wrinkle of the dura near there which should lead to relatively small risk of CSF leak following micro surgery. This could prove to be a very good and more common approach in fifty years.