The effect of famciclovir on delayed facial paralysis after acoustic tumor resection.

Objectives/hypothesis: To determine the efficacy of prophylactic famciclovir to significantly reduce the percentage of patients experiencing postoperative delayed facial paresis.

Study Design: Prospective evaluation of facial nerve grade for two groups (treated and untreated) with famciclovir before and after surgery. All procedures were conducted by the same group of experienced neurotologists.

Translabyrinthine approach for acoustic tumor removal. 1992.

The translabyrinthine approach is the most direct route to the cerebellopontine angle. It is the preferred approach for removal of all tumors in patients with poor hearing and for large tumors when the likelihood of hearing preservation is slight. This approach offers the advantages of minimum cerebellar retraction, identification of the facial nerve proximally and medially, and the ability to repair immediately the facial nerve if it is severed during acoustic tumor removal.

Correction of progressive hearing loss in superior canal dehiscence syndrome.

A 44-year-old woman presented with typical vestibular symptoms of superior semicircular canal dehiscence syndrome (SSCDS). In addition, the patient experienced a rapidly progressive mixed hearing loss in the affected ear prior to surgical intervention that was unresponsive to oral steroid administration. Following middle fossa craniotomy with repair of the dehiscence, the patient's mixed hearing loss resolved to normal levels with no air-bone gap.

Spontaneous otogenic pneumocephalus managed with the middle fossa approach.

Spontaneous otogenic pneumocephalus caused by barotrauma is extremely rare. We surveyed the literature and describe a case report of otogenic pneumocephalus from barotrauma managed with a middle fossa craniotomy. The neurotologic literature review revealed three similar cases.

Hearing preservation surgery for neurofibromatosis Type 2-related vestibular schwannoma in pediatric patients.

Object: The authors reviewed the proportion of pediatric patients with neurofibromatosis Type 2 (NF2) in whom hearing was preserved after middle fossa resection of vestibular schwannoma (VS).

Methods: In this retrospective chart review the authors examined the cases of 35 children with NF2 who had undergone middle fossa resection (47 surgeries) between 1992 and 2004 in a neurotological tertiary care center. Surgical outcome was assessed using pure-tone average (PTA) thresholds obtained before and immediately after resection.

Intratympanic steroid injection for treatment of idiopathic sudden hearing loss.

Objective: To conduct a clinical trial of intratympanic steroid injection for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss in subjects who failed oral steroid therapy.

Study Design And Setting: Open-label methylprednisolone injection clinical trial in a tertiary neurotologic referral center. Twenty subjects (14 males; 6 females) received 4 injections within a 2-week period (4 days apart).

MRI evaluation of neurofibromatosis 2 patients: a standardized approach for accuracy in interpretation.

Objective: To determine the level of agreement between local radiologists' and an experienced neuroradiologist's measurements of vestibular schwannomas.

Study Design: Prospective study with uniform magnetic resonance acquisition protocol parameters and reporting instructions across 30 magnetic resonance imaging facilities worldwide.

Setting: Multicenter natural history study of neurofibromatosis Type 2.