Vestibular schwannoma with repeated intratumoral hemorrhage

Abstract

Repeated hemorrhage from a vestibular schwannoma is very rare. We report a 15-year-old male, to our knowledge the fourth known patient with repeated hemorrhage of vestibular schwannoma, who presented with rapidly progressive right-sided hearing loss and tinnitus. MRI showed a mass lesion in the right cerebellopontine angle. T1-weighted and T2-weighted MRI revealed a hyperintense intratumoral area, indicating subacute hemorrhage within the tumor. Nine weeks after the initial onset, the patient again presented with a sudden onset headache, nausea, and ataxia. A CT scan showed recurrence of an intratumoral hemorrhage. A subtotal resection was achieved. A histopathological examination of the resected specimen showed typical features of schwannoma. We review the pertinent literature and discuss the features of repeated hemorrhage from a vestibular schwannoma.