Hearing preservation: a realistic goal in surgical removal of cerebellopontine angle tumors.

Complete excision of small (less than or equal to 2 cm) cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumors as well as preservation of hearing is possible. In a series of 28 patients with serviceable hearing and small tumors, one in three (32%) had hearing preserved. Our experience with tumors of this size (N = 54) suggests no significant difference in morbidity whether the approach used is suboccipital (prone) as in attempted hearing preservation, or translabyrinthine when hearing is not a factor.