title: Implications of cystic features in vestibular schwannomas of patients undergoing microsurgical resection.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cystic vestibular schwannomas (VSs) are described as being more aggressive than solid tumors.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We examined 468 VS patients to evaluate whether the presence of cystic components in VSs may be an important feature for predicting postoperative outcome.
  
  
  METHODS
  We selected all VS patients from a prospectively collected database (1984-2009) who underwent microsurgical resection for VS. Hearing data were analyzed using American Association of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Facial nerve dysfunction was analyzed using the House-Brackmann scale. We used univariate comparisons to determine the clinical impact of cystic changes on preoperative and postsurgical hearing and facial nerve preservation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified 58 patients (11%) with cystic changes and 410 patients with solid VSs. In this analysis, cystic VS patients tended to have larger tumors (78% of patients with >2.0 cm extrameatal extension) compared with the solid VS group, which consisted of many smaller and medium-sized tumors (P < .0001). Univariate analyses found that tumors with cystic changes did not lead to worse rates of preoperative hearing loss (χ(2), P = not significant) compared with solid VSs. Cystic changes conferred worse postoperative hearing in patients with medium-sized tumors (P = .035). Cystic changes also did not significantly affect facial nerve outcomes (χ(2), P = not significant).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cystic tumors tend to be larger than noncystic tumors and affect outcomes by reducing the rate at which hearing preservation is attempted and by worsening hearing outcome in medium-sized tumors. Further, peripheral cysts cause lower rates of hearing preservation compared with centrally located cysts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
authors.forename: Brian J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Jian
authors.forename: Michael E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Sughrue
authors.forename: Rajwant
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: Martin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Rutkowski
authors.forename: Ari J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Kane
authors.forename: Gurvinder
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kaur
authors.forename: Isaac
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Lawrence H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Pitts
authors.forename: Andrew T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Parsa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D020863:Central Nervous System Cysts / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008866:Microsurgery / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative / Q000379:methods; D009464:Neuroma, Acoustic / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult