What are the symptoms of an auditory neuroma?

  Acoustic neuroma is a benign tumor originating from the nerve sheath of the auditory nerve, mostly from the nerve sheath cells of the internal auditory tract, mostly unilateral and slow growing. Auditory neuroma accounts for 5% to 10% of intracranial tumors. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of diagnosis and surgery, promising progress has been made in early diagnosis and treatment of this tumor.  Charlesbell (1830) first described the clinical symptoms of auditory neuromas, which have been refined since then. The earliest symptoms appear in the ear and include: 1. Tinnitus and deafness. Deafness is often unilateral with slow progressive aggravation and can vary in duration from months to years. Hearing loss is mostly noticed when talking on the phone due to poor speech recognition. There may be fluctuating low frequency hearing loss; 2. vertigo and imbalance disorders, which appear due to the destruction of vestibular nerve by tumor growth, also progressive, unstable walking or rotation of vision; 3. facial nerve invasion symptoms, as the tumor grows and compresses the facial nerve adjacent to the auditory nerve, facial muscle paralysis or muscle weakness appears, and the invasion of the middle nerve of facial nerve shows lacrimal gland secretion changes, dry eyes or tearing Invasion of the middle nerve of the facial nerve may show changes in lacrimal secretion, dry eyes or excessive tears, and may also lead to changes in taste perception; 4. Invasion of the trigeminal nerve shows facial pain or numbness; 5. Invasion of the brainstem and cerebellum is a sign that the tumor continues to increase in size, and movement disorders of the ipsilateral upper limbs and gait instability may occur.  The diagnosis of auditory neuroma can be made by CT scan first. CT can make the diagnosis of tumor with 0.5cm diameter size. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is much clearer and more expensive than CT. Audiological testing is also necessary. As early as 1903, Krause resected auditory neuromas via the suboccipital route and Panse via the vagus route, but the mortality rate was 83.3%. Nowadays, death is rare.