Solitary primary lymphoma of the cerebellopontine angle: case report

A 27-year-old woman had a solitary primary B-cell lymphoma that involved the right cerebellopontine angle. The tumor invaded the ipsilateral acoustic nerve and produced profound sensory neural hearing loss. Surgical resection was promptly followed by radiotherapy and a concluding brief chemotherapy treatment. The patient survived 34 months after the initial onset of the disease or 22 months after the combined treatments. Only six lymphomas affecting the cerebellopontine angle, three primary and three secondary, have been recorded. The combination of surgical treatment and radiotherapy appeared to offer encouraging results for primary lymphomas. The differential diagnosis of lymphoma of the cerebellopontine angle includes common acoustic neurilemoma, meningioma, epidermoid tumor, and other rare neoplasms involving this region that required pathological verification to distinguish them.