Surgery for sporadic vestibular schwannoma. Part I: General outcome and risk of tumor recurrence

Background: Vestibular schwannomas are slow growing, benign tumors. There are three possible management options: surgery, radiation treatment or active surveillance. The aim of this study was to assess the general outcome and risk of tumor recurrence.

Materials and methods: The study included 220 consecutive patients (134 women, 86 men; the age ranged from 18 to 74) operated with the retrosigmoid transmeatal approach. The largest extrameatal diameter of the tumor ranged from 8 to 72mm (mean 30mm). According to the Samii grading scale, the tumors were classified as follows: T2-12 (6%), T3-51 (23%) and T4-157 (71%). Gross total resection was performed in 217 patients and neartotal in 3.

Results: Two hundred and eighteen (99.1%) patients were discharged home in a satisfactory neurological condition (GR or MD in GOS). One (0.5%) patient died due to brainstem infarction. One (0.5%) patient had unchanged severe cerebellar syndrome in comparison to the preoperative period (SD in GOS). In long-term follow-up, one patient went blind within a few months after surgery. Including the results of further neurosurgical procedures for CSF leak, shunt implantation, tumor regrowth and facial nerve reanimation, 98.6% of the patients were fully independent but with different neurological deficits. Tumor recurrence was observed in 5 (2.3%) patients during the follow-up period (mean term: 6.4 years). The average time to recurrence diagnosis was 8.8 years. All those patients were operated on again without any adjuvant therapy and there was no further re-growth at mean follow-up of 5.2 years.

Conclusions: Complete removal of VS is usually curative and poses very low risks of severe disability (if audio-facial sequels are not included), mortality and long-term recurrence. For recurrent tumors, carefully tailored revision surgery without irradiation offers a high efficacy with low risk of complications.