Conservative Treatment of Vestibular Schwannoma

Abstract

Conservative observation of small vestibular schwannomas may be regarded as a reasonable management option because most of these tumors do not grow during an initial period of observation. Conservative treatment of this subset of patients with small, nongrowing tumors does not significantly affect life functioning, as reflected in SF-36 survey data. However, hearing loss did progress in this population. Thus, patients should be counseled regarding this risk and generic QOL measures such as the SF-36 should be used with caution in future assessments. This study emphasizes the importance of combining generic and disease-specific QOL measures in future studies of protocols of vestibular schwannoma management.