Stereotactic radiosurgery for glomus jugulare tumors

Objectives/Hypothesis: Surgery is considered to be the mainstay of treatmen t for glomus jugulare tumors. A subset of patients are poor surgical candid ates based on age, medical problems, tumor size, or prior treatment failure . The purpose of this study was to review our results with stereotactic rad iosurgery (gamma knife treatment) in this group of patients, with particula r attention to adverse reactions and symptom relief. Study Design: Retrospe ctive review and phone survey. Methods: Charts were reviewed for size and l ocation of tumor, history of previous treatment, symptoms before and after treatment, amount of radiation received, acute and late complications, and functional level before and after treatment. Pretreatment and posttreatment magnetic resonance imaging scans were also reviewed, Identified patients w ere then contacted for a phone interview. Results: Eight patients were iden tified, Phone interviews were conducted with four patients. Four patients h ad failed previous treatment. Follow-up ranged from 7 to 104 months. One pa tient experienced an acute complication: intractable vertigo requiring hosp italization. No patient experienced delayed cranial neuropathies. No patien t reported worsening of any of the following symptoms: pulsatile tinnitus, hearing loss, facial weakness, hoarseness, or difficulty swallowing, Three patients reported improvement in their pulsatile tinnitus, Two patients rep orted improvement in hearing loss, and one patient each reported improvemen t in vertigo and difficulty swallowing, Conclusions: Preliminary results su ggest that stereotactic radiosurgery is useful to control symptoms and may be delivered safely in patients with primary or recurrent glomus jugulare t umors who are poor surgical candidates.