[A case of tentorial meningioma presented with pure word deafness]

It has been known that an isolation of Wernicke's area from auditory input results in pure word deafness. In this report, a 73-year-old female case with tentorial meningioma suffering from pure word deafness is reported. The patient initially presented with hydrocephalus, and was treated with a ventriculo-peritoneal(V-P) shunt. A year after the V-P shunt, she suffered from a symptom of deafness. On admission, her repetition and auditory comprehension were severely impaired, while reading and visual comprehension were almost normal. Auditory brain stem response(ABR) revealed normal latency between wave I and V, while wave VI and VII was disappeared. Middle latency response(MLR) showed no wave peak. On MRI, tentorial meningioma compressed bilateral medial geniculate bodies, but not auditory radiation or temporal lobe. 99mTc-HMPAO single photon emission computed tomography(SPECT) showed hypoperfusion in the left temporal lobe, considered as a diaschisis resulting from the isolation of left temporal lobe from auditory input via bilateral medial geniculate bodies.