Hearing and Quality of Life Over Time in Vestibular Schwannoma Patients: Observation Compared to Stereotactic Radiosurgery.

OBJECTIVE

To examine quality of life changes for patients with vestibular schwannoma (VS) undergoing observation or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS).

STUDY DESIGN

Retrospective review.

SETTING

Academic medical center.

PATIENTS

Patients with VS who underwent observation or SRS and had at least two audiograms and Penn Acoustic Neuroma Quality of Life (PANQOL) surveys, a quality of life survey for patients with VS.

INTERVENTIONS

SRS or observation.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Pure-tone average (PTA), speech discrimination score (SDS), PANQOL score; controlling for tumor size, baseline hearing, and other factors.

RESULTS

One hundred twenty-three patients met inclusion criteria: 89 underwent observation and 34 SRS. There was no significant difference in the rate of decline measured by PTA (PTA worsened at a rate of 0.25 dB/yr more in the observation group compared with the SRS group, p = 0.77) and SDS (SDS worsened at a rate of 2.1%/yr more in the SRS group compared with the observation group, p = 0.82). Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated the SRS group had a higher probability to progress to class D hearing over observation (hazard ratio 7.1, p = 0.005). The rate of change of the SRS PANQOL scores was significantly improved in the total (p = 0.005) and hearing (p = 0.04) domain score compared with observation. However, both groups regress to a similar PANQOL total and hearing domain score over time.

CONCLUSION

PANQOL scores were higher at baseline in the observation group than in the SRS group. However, over time, PANQOL scores in the observation group decreased while PANQOL scores in the SRS group increased, resulting in PANQOL scores that were equivalent by the end of follow-up.