Hearing Preservation in Unilateral Acoustic Neuroma Surgery

This paper reviews the principal English literature on hearing preservation in unilateral acoustic neuroma surgery. Seventeen case reports and 13 surgical series are included. In addition, we report ten cases of our own, two with successful hearing preservation. The purpose of this report is to study feasibility, success rate, and associated problems. Previous reports have been compared in terms of criteria that we have selected. A classification system similar to Silverstein's is used. The total number of cases under review is 621, with 221 reported successes. Cases limited to those having a unilateral acoustic neuroma, with valid supportive audiometry, were 394, with 131 successes. The approximate overall rate of success is 33%. There are five cases of hearing preservation with unilateral acoustic neuromas 3 cm or larger when supporting audiometric data are available, the largest being "4-5 centimeters." Problems included mixing of unilateral acoustic neuromas with other types of tumors and failure to include comprehensive data, particularly audiometry. We conclude 1) that hearing preservation is a reasonable goal in unilateral acoustic neuroma surgery, although the number of available candidates is relatively small and 2) that intelligent selection of patients and high quality surgical technique are the keys to success.