Beyond the ABCs: Hearing Loss and Quality of Life in Vestibular Schwannoma

To assess the impact of differential hearing loss on QOL in sporadic unilateral vestibular schwannoma. Cross-sectional observational multicenter study including 422 patients with vestibular schwannoma and formal audiometry within 1 year of survey administration, analyzed using multivariable regression. Among 422 patients included, the median age was 57 (range, 18-81) years; 223 (53%) were women. Among 390 patients with complete audiometric data, American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery class was A in 134 (34%), B in 69 (18%), C in 26 (7%), and D in 161 (41%). A total of 335 of 390 (86%) reported subjective ipsilateral hearing loss (median severity, 6/10 [1 = normal, 10 = deaf]), 166 (43%) reported ipsilateral inability to use the telephone, 155 (37%) reported that hearing loss had affected personal relationships, and 213 (51%) reported difficulty with conversations. After adjusting for age and sex, the odds ratio (OR) for hearing loss adversely affecting relationships was 4.4 for class B hearing vs class A (95% CI, 2.1-9.4; P