The 56-year-old Mr. Peng began to experience hearing loss in his right ear 3 years ago without any obvious cause; he began to experience instability and other symptoms a year ago, which made him miserable. For further treatment, on March 2, Mr. Peng came to Xiangtan Central Hospital for treatment.

Hearing examination revealed that the patient had no effective hearing in the right ear. The enhanced MRI of the head considered a large acoustic neuroma on the right side with obstructive hydrocephalus.

Located at the patient’s posterior cranial fossa, the lesion is large in size, deep in position, and rich in peripheral blood supply. It is closely related to important intracranial nerves and blood vessels such as the brain stem and facial nerve. The surgery is difficult with possible postoperative complications such as facial paralysis and hearing loss, which worries patient and his families. Our neurosurgery department attaches great importance to their emotions and feeling and carefully arranges preoperative examination and evaluation and surgical preparation.

Full resection of the tumor is the key to treatment while preserving the function of the facial and auditory nerves. In consideration of not affecting the patient's future quality of life, Director Zeng Qun decided to use real-time Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring during the operation. This technology is to discover and protect the relevant nerves in time by stimulating the tissues around the cranial nerves, which greatly improves the protection rate of the facial and auditory nerves. In developed countries and regions, Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoringhas become an indispensable part of clinical surgery to monitor the integrity of nerve function, reduce nerve damage, and improve the quality of surgery.

After actively quitting smoking, strengthening lung exercises, enhancing nutritional support and other preoperative preparations, the patient was sent to the operating room on March 11. The surgical team consists of Director Zeng Qun, Director Guo Lingzhi, and Dr. He Dan, which areoperated under the guidance of Liu Qing, the head of the skull base brainstem tumor specialist of the Neurosurgery DepartmentfromXiangya Hospital. After the operation, the patient’s eyelids were well closed, his hearing was better than before, and there was no damage to the facial auditory nerve.

Pre-operation

Post-operation

On March 29, the patient was discharged from the hospital and sent a banner to the department to express his gratitude.