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Published on: May 26, 2023
Cochlear Implantation Outcomes in Patients With Sporadic Inner Ear Schwannomas With and Without Simultaneous Tumor
Ashley M Nassiri1, Kelly Staricha2, Brian A Neff
1Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado.
Objectives:
Describe a single institution's cochlear implant outcomes for patients with inner ear schwannomas (IES) in the setting of various tumor management strategies (observation, surgical resection, or stereotactic radiosurgery [SRS]).
Study Design:
Single-institution retrospective review.
Patients:
Patients diagnosed with isolated, sporadic IES who underwent cochlear implantation (CI).
Interventions:
CI with or without IES treatment.
Main Outcome Measures:
Speech perception outcomes, tumor status.
Results:
Twelve patients with IES underwent CI with a median audiologic and radiologic follow-up of 12 months. Six patients underwent complete resection of the tumor at the time of CI, four underwent tumor observation, and two underwent SRS before CI. At 1 year after CI for all patients, the median consonant-nucleus-consonant (CNC) word score was 55% (interquartile range, 44-73%), and the median AzBio sentence in quiet score was 77% (interquartile range, 68-93%). Overall, those with surgical resection performed similarly to those with tumor observation (CNC 58 versus 61%; AzBio in quiet 74 versus 91%, respectively). Patients who underwent tumor resection before implantation had a wider range of speech performance outcomes compared with patients who underwent tumor observation. Two patients had SRS treatment before CI (10 months previous and same-day as CI) with CNC word scores of 6 and 40%, respectively.
Conclusions:
Patients with IES who underwent CI demonstrated similar speech performance outcomes (CNC 56% and AzBio 82%), when compared with the general cochlear implant population. Patients who underwent either tumor observation or surgical resection performed well after CI.
