Primary Treatment of Small-To-Medium (<3cm) Sporadic Vestibular Schwannomas: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis on Long-Term Hearing Preservation And Tumor Control Rates For Microsurgery Versus Radiosurgery.

Abstract

BackgroundOver the past two decades, the treatment of small-to-medium (<3cm) sporadic vestibular schwannomas (VS) has experienced a definite shift to stereotactic radiosurgery vis-a-vis microsurgery. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of VS patients primarily treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) or microsurgery (MS), with particular attention to hearing preservation outcomes (HPO), tumor control (TC), and facial nerve dysfunction (FND).MethodsA systematic review was conducted (Medline and Scopus database) for the period, January 2010 to June 2020 with appropriate MeSH. English language articles for small-to-medium sporadic VS (<3cm) utilizing SRS or MS as treatment modality, with minimum follow-up of 3 years, were included. Studies had to report an acceptable standardized hearing metric. HPO, TC, and FND rates were analyzed. ResultsThirty-two studies met inclusion criteria: 10 for microsurgery; 23 for radiosurgery (one comparative study included in both). HPO, at ~65 months follow-up, were comparable between MS group (10 studies; 809 patients) and SRS group (23 studies; 1234 patients) (56% versus 59%, p=0.1527). TC, at ~70 months follow-up, was significantly better in MS group (9 studies; 1635 patients) versus SRS group (19 studies; 2260 patients) (98% versus 92%, p < 0.0001). FND, at ~ 12 months follow-up, was significantly higher in MS group (8 studies; 1101 patients) versus SRS group (17 studies; 2285 patients) (10% versus 2%, p < 0.0001).ConclusionMS and SRS are comparable primary treatment options for small (<3cm) sporadic VS with respect to HPO at 5-year follow-up in patients with serviceable hearing at presentation. Approximately 50% patients for both modalities will likely lose serviceable hearing by that time-point. High TC rates (>90%) were seen with both modalities, with MS (98%) significantly better than SRS (92%). The post-treatment FND was significantly less with SRS group (2%) versus MS group (10%).