Recovery From Postoperative Hearing Loss in Retrosigmoid Vestibular Schwannoma Surgery: Report of 5 Cases and the Recovery Rate

Recovery from postoperative hearing loss is seldom observed in vestibular schwannoma surgery. The authors reported 5 rare cases of a return to useful hearing presenting after recovery from complete hearing deterioration occurring immediately after retrosigmoid removal of vestibular schwannoma. The first signs of useful hearing recovery can be determined by the patient's ability to recognize sound within 3 d after surgery (range 1-3 d, median 3 d). Furthermore, the duration until hearing ability recovered to a useful level (range 6-40 d, median 14 d) seems to correlate with the duration before speech identification could be confirmed (range 2-20 d, median 5 d). The percentage of a chance at the delayed hearing recovery in cases who lost the hearing immediately after the operation was 7.4% (5/68). The data on the time course of the change in hearing abilities are of great value in prognosticating the potential for hearing recovery in patients who complain of hearing loss after surgery.