Factors Leading to Oro-Facial Herpetic Eruptions in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Vestibular Schwannoma.

OBJECTIVE

To study factors influencing oro-facial herpetic eruptions (HEs) in patients undergoing retromastoid suboccipital craniectomy for vestibular schwannomas (VS).

METHODS

A retrospective analysis of the prospectively collected database (from July 2014 to December 2015). A total of 87 patients underwent retromastoid suboccipital craniectomy for VS at our center. For the purpose of analysis the patient subset was divided into 2 groups, HE and non-HE. Pearson χ2 test or Fisher exact test were used to identify the factors.

RESULTS

The overall incidence of postoperative HE was less than 1% (0.89%, 26 patients of 2916 cases); whereas after VS surgery, it was 20.69% (18 of 87). Demographic profiles of patients in the 2 groups were comparable. Average tumor size (with HE 3.19 ± 2 × 0.67 cm, non-HE 3.38 ± 2 × 1.07 cm), consistency, and laterality also were comparable between the 2 groups. Factors favoring development of postoperative HEs were large size (12 vs. 22, P = 0.013) and preoperative trigeminal nerve (CN V) involvement (9 of 18, 50%, P = 0.046). All patients developed HE in maxillary division of trigeminal nerve (V2), whereas involvement of ophthalmic (V1) and mandibular (V3) divisions were involved less commonly in combination with V2 (V2, 72.2%; V2 + V3, 22.2%; V1 + V2 + V3, 5.6%). The majority of the patients (55.56%) developed HE on postoperative day 3 and none beyond postoperative day 5. All patients responded to empirical oral acyclovir.

CONCLUSIONS

The study highlights the relatively high incidence and factors associated with this rare but benign complication.