CI Performance Of Patients After Vestibular Schwannoma Therapy

Introduction Deaf Patients from Vestibular Schwannoma (VS) or its therapy can benefit from Cochlear Implants (CI). The Success of the Implantation is difficult to predict. There are no preoperative parameters, which help to assess the audiometric outcome of the implant. Finding these parameters was the aim of the study.

Method We did a retrospective analysis of data from 17 patients having received a CI due to VS or VS therapy at our department between 2008 and 2016. The following parameters were reviewed: type of therapy, size of tumor, surgical approach, audiometry before and after surgery.

Results The biggest group of patients had surgery (13), 2 were observed and 2 underwent radiotherapy. Only 11 of 17 patients had a positive speech recognition with CI. These 11 patients understood 100% of numbers in the Freiburger test. The other 6 patients couldn´t understand words with the CI. All of them were in the surgery group. The surgical approach and the size of the tumor had no correlation with the audiometric outcome.

Conclusion Patients after VS can profit from CI. However the audiometric outcome is harder to predict than in patients with cochlear hearing loss. Individual selection of patients and professional advice is challenging despite availability of subjective and objective tests.

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Publication History

Article published online:
10 June 2020