Hearing preservation surgery in vestibular schwannoma

OBJECTIVES: To study the effect of pre-operative hearing level and tumour size on the hearing outcome of hearing preservation surgery for vestibular schwannoma. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: A review of literature conducted at Gruppo Otologico, a tertiary referral centre for neurotology and skull base surgery. RESULTS: A total of 1993 patients in 16 publications addressing the topic of hearing preservation surgery in vestibular schwannoma were analysed. The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery hearing classification system was the classification upon which we based our analysis. CONCLUSION: Defining hearing preservation as class-A hearing, there was a strong inverse relationship between pre-operative hearing and post-operative hearing levels and between tumour size and post-operative hearing levels.