Quality of life in acoustic neuroma patients.

OBJECTIVE

To examine the differences in quality of life for vestibular schwannoma patients undergoing conservative management, gamma knife, and surgery.

PATIENTS: Vestibular schwannoma patients without a diagnosis of NF2.

INTERVENTIONS: Vestibular schwannoma treatment or conservative management.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Penn Acoustic Neuroma Quality of Life (PANQOL) survey scores (0-100).

RESULTS

One hundred eighty-six patients (98 conservative, 49 gamma knife, 39 surgery) were included. Mean patient age (years) of the surgery group (49 ± 14) was significantly younger than both the conservative (58 ± 13) and gamma knife group (59 ± 12) (p < 0.001). Mean follow-up time was 2.6 years.Tumor size (mm) was found to be significantly different between the conservative (8 ± 4.8), gamma knife (18 ± 5.9), and surgery (22 ± 8.3) groups (p < 0.001). Speech recognition threshold and speech discrimination percentage were significantly better for the conservative group compared to the gamma knife or surgery groups (p < 0.001).The hearing domain scores seemed better for the conservative group (62 ± 26) when compared to the surgery group (47 ± 25). The general and total domain scores were similar for all treatment groups, whereas the quality-of-life scores for gamma knife and surgery were similar.

CONCLUSION

Although surgery groups' significantly larger tumors and worse hearing were apparent in specific PANQOL domains, all patients achieved a similar general level of quality of life.