Unchanged unilateral hearing loss and ipsilateral growth of an acoustic neuroma from 1 to 4 cm.
Progressive sensorineural hearing loss is the most important early symptom of a cerebellopontine angle process. A case report is presented of a 42-year-old woman who was referred to our department in 1979. Oil cisternography showed non filling of the left internal acoustic canal. Audiometry was planned as the method of control, but she did not return until nine-years later. In 1988, an acoustic neurinoma of 4 cm diameter was found in the left CPA. Pure tone audiometry and speech audiometry showed that during the nine-year interval, her 60 dB flat sensorineural hearing loss and speech perception thresholds had remained almost unchanged. A follow-up with only tone and speech audiometry can lead to a false negative diagnosis in some of these cases. Calculation of the growth in tumour volume over nine years in this patient showed a tumour volume doubling time of about 15 months.
Institute of Otolaryngology, University Hospital, Nijmegen.
J P
JP
van Leeuwen
C W
CW
Cremers
H O
HO
Thijssen
H E
HE
Meyer
D000328:Adult; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D001302:Audiometry, Speech; D002530:Cerebellopontine Angle / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D009464:Neuroma, Acoustic / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed