UNCHANGED UNILATERAL HEARING-LOSS AND IPSILATERAL GROWTH OF AN ACOUSTIC NEUROMA FROM 1 TO 4 CM

Progressive sensorineural hearing loss is the most important early sym ptom of a cerebellopontine angle process. A case report is presented o f a 42-year-old woman who was referred to our department in 1979. Oil cisternography showed non filling of the left internal acoustic canal. Audiometry was planned as the method of control, but she did not retu rn until nine-years later. In 1988, an acoustic neurionoma of 4 cm dia meter was found in the left CPA. Pure tone audiometry and speech audio metry showed that during the nine-year interval, her 60 dB flat sensor ineural hearing loss and speech perception thresholds had remained alm ost unchanged. A follow-up with only tone and speech audiometry can le ad to a false negative diagnosis in some of these cases. Calculation o f the growth in tumour volume over nine years in this patient showed a tumour volume doubling time of about 15 months.