Osteoma of the internal auditory canal: case report

A 42-year-old man with normal hearing presented with a long history of vertigo and tinnitus. CT scan showed large osteomata of the internal auditory canal. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was normal. The osteomata were removed surgically via the retrosigmoid approach and examined histologically. His symptoms were abolished. As MRI has become the gold standard in the search for small acoustic tumours it is likely that symptomatic bony lesions, rare though they are, will be missed if MRI is the sole imaging modality. A review of the literature is included.