Pl. Grey et al., AUDIOVESTIBULAR RESULTS AFTER SURGERY FOR CEREBELLOPONTINE ANGLE MENINGIOMAS, The American journal of otology, 17(4), 1996, pp. 634-638
Meningiomas are the second most common cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tu
mor. The reported rates of hearing preservation following surgical rem
oval vary between 32% and 100%. There is only one recent report discus
sing vestibular function after CPA meningioma removal. In this series
of 31 patients with CPA meningiomas, 16 patients had their tumors remo
ved via the retrosigmoid approach. All 16 had audiovestibular assessme
nt pre- and postsurgery and were the subjects of this study. Class A h
earing is socially useful hearing and is defined as a pure tone averag
e (PTA; average of 500 Hz and 1, 2 and 4 kHz) of <30 dB and speech des
crimination scores (SDS) of >70%. Class B hearing is serviceable heari
ng, defined as PTA of <50 dB and SDS of >50%. Nine patients had class
A hearing, and two had class B hearing presurgery. Socially useful hea
ring was preserved in six of nine (67%) patients in whom it was presen
t before surgery, and serviceable or better hearing was preserved in e
ight of 11 (73%). Vestibular symptomatology and examination findings i
mproved despite a decrease in the number of patients with intact calor
ic function postsurgery. Patients who retained vestibular function on
caloric testing were symptomatically better than those who lost calori
c function. These results confirm that excellent audiovestibular funct
ion is possible after CPA meningioma surgery.