Abstract
Objective This study was aimed to perform a systematic literature review by examining outcomes
in patients with sporadic vestibular schwannoma (VS) undergoing ipsilateral cochlear
implant (CI).
Data Sources PubMed-NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) and Scopus databases
were searched through October 2017.
Study Selection Studies reporting auditory outcomes for each patient when a CI was placed with an
ipsilateral sporadic VS were included.
Main Outcome Measures Demographic variables, VS characteristics, preoperative hearing metrics, duration
of deafness, CI type, approach to tumor resection, postoperative auditory outcomes,
and postoperative tinnitus outcomes were reported for each eligible patient within
studies. Each study was evaluated for quality and bias.
Results Fifteen studies and 45 patients met inclusion criteria. Mean speech discrimination
score (SDS) improved from 30.0 to 56.4% after CI placement. The majority when reported
had an improvement in tinnitus. Preoperative ipsilateral SDS was a negative predictor
of postoperative SDS, while neither tumor resection status, tumor location, duration
of deafness, ipsilateral pure tone average, nor timing of CI placement had a significant
effect on patient outcome.
Conclusions Notwithstanding the challenges inherent with surveillance magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) in the setting of a cochlear implant magnet, select sporadic vestibular schwannoma
patients can be considered for cochlear implantation.
Keywords
cochlear implant - vestibular schwannoma - acoustic neuroma - hearing outcomes - sporadic
vestibular schwannoma
