Cochlear implants to treat deafness caused by vestibular schwannomas.
OBJECTIVE
Rehabilitation of hearing is complicated in patients with profound bilateral hearing loss in the presence of sporadic vestibular schwannoma (VS) or neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2), especially if the tumor does not need to be removed. We present the outcome of patients who have had a cochlear implant in the tumor affected ear without removal of the primary tumor.


METHODS
This is a retrospective multicentre study investigating outcomes of cochlear implantation in profoundly deaf patients with vestibular schwannoma in the implanted ear.


METHODS
Out of 11 implanted patients, 5 required no treatment for their tumor, whereas 6 had previously undergone radiotherapy. Nine patients experienced NF2, and 2 had unilateral VS in the only hearing ear. Postoperative hearing was assessed with open and closed set speech discrimination, including City University of New York (CUNY) in noise and Bamford, Kowal and Bench (BKB) sentence scores.


RESULTS
Patients with untreated lesions experienced marked improvement in their BKB and CUNY scores in the implanted ear and were daily cochlear implant users. The improvement was less consistent in the patients who had radiotherapy where only 1 patient attained open set speech discrimination.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients with unilateral VS (sporadic or those affected with NF2) whose tumor status was stable, benefited from cochlear implantation in their tumor-affected ear. Patients who had radiotherapy also benefited from CI, but their outcomes were variable.
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK. payalmukherjee@hotmail.com
Payal
P
Mukherjee
James D
JD
Ramsden
Nick
N
Donnelly
Patrick
P
Axon
Shakeel
S
Saeed
Paul
P
Fagan
Richard M
RM
Irving
D000293:Adolescent; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D003638:Deafness / Q000209:etiology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016518:Neurofibromatosis 2 / Q000150:complications; D009464:Neuroma, Acoustic / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D010348:Patient Care Team; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult