Bilateral hearing loss as first symptom of a carcinoma of the pancreas.

We report the history of a patient who presented first with a progressive u nilateral hearing loss and later with a bilateral deafness and an unilatera l facial nerve palsy as first and only symptoms of a pancreatic adenocarcin oma. By means of magnetic resonance tomography tumor-suspect lesions in bot h internal auditory canals were detected. Referring to the results of furth er examinations these intracanalicular lesions are most probably due to rar ely seen bilateral metastasis of a pancreatic adenocarcinoma in the tempora l bone. In addition to this rarely diagnosed localisation of metastasis it is rather uncommon that this kind of primary malignoma had not been detecte d because of gastrointestinal symptoms or extracranial metastasis.