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79th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

30.04. - 04.05.2008, Bonn

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Learning curve in acoustic neuroma surgery

Meeting Abstract

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  • corresponding author Nikolaos Marangos - Center ORL, head & neck and skull base surgery, Athens, Greece
  • author Anna Papadopoulou - Center ORL, head & neck and skull base surgery, Athens, Greece
  • Konstantina Karra - Center ORL, head & neck and skull base surgery, Athens, Greece
  • Apostolos Papadopoulos - Center ORL, head & neck and skull base surgery, Athens, Greece

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 79th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Bonn, 30.04.-04.05.2008. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2008. Doc08hno89

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2008/08hno89.shtml

Published: July 8, 2008

© 2008 Marangos et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Consultation of subjects with acoustic neuroma regarding outcome and risk for facial palcy should be based on hard evidence. Tumor size is known as an important prognostic factor. In this study we evaluate the influence of surgeon’s experience.

All 133 acoustic neuromas removed by our senior surgeon are included in the study, 75 via a translabyrinthine and 58 via a middle fossa approach. Function of the facial nerve has been evaluated immediately after surgery as well as one year after using the House-Brackmann classification. The results of the first 50% of the tumors were compared to those of the last 50% for each approach. A clear and significantly better outcome could be achieved in the chronologically last 50% of the surgeries demonstrating that increasing surgeon’s experience reduces the risk for facial palsy and dramatically improves outcome.