Changes of video head impulse test before and after translabyrinthectomy in patients with acoustic neuroma

Acoustic neuroma (AN) is a benign tumor that usually affects a patient's hearing and balance function. For the screening and diagnosis of AN, the traditional approach mainly relies on audiological examination and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), often ignoring the importance of vestibular function assessment in the affected area. As an emerging method of vestibular function detection, video head impulse test (vHIT) has been widely used in clinic, but research on its use in AN diagnosis is relatively limited. This study aims to explore the value of vHIT in the diagnosis of AN, vestibular dysfunction assessment, and postoperative compensation establishment in unilateral AN patients undergoing unilateral AN resection through labyrinthine approach.

This retrospective study was conducted on 27 AN patients who underwent unilateral AN resection via labyrinthine approach from October 2020 to March 2022 in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University. vHIT was performed 1 week before surgery to assess vestibular function, pure tone audiometry (PTA) was used to assess hearing level, and ear MRI was used to assess tumor size. Follow-up vHIT was conducted at 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year post-surgery. The correlation of vHIT with hearing and tumor size was analyzed.

Preoperative vHIT showed that the posterior semicircular canal on the affected side was the most common semicircular canal with reduced vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) gain. There was a correlation between the VOR gain of vHIT on the affected side and the hearing level (r=-0.47, P<0.05) or tumor size (r=-0.54, P<0.01). The results of vHIT on the affected side showed that the hearing level and mean VOR gain of the anterior semicircular canal increased slightly with time, and the amplitude and saccade percentage of the dominant saccades of the 3 semicircular canals increased, while the latency time decreased, with the most obvious changes occurring 1 week post-surgery.

vHIT can effectively monitor the changes of vestibular function in AN patients before and after surgery and has application value in assisting the diagnosis of vestibular dysfunction in AN patients.