Cerebellopontine angle tumor treatment

see also Vestibular schwannoma treatment.

Symptomatic, large CPA tumors require surgical resection in order to prevent irreversible, severe neurological damages. However, its tight and strategical location make surgery in the CPA very challenging and require appropriate pre-surgical planning. This planning relies on correct pre-surgical diagnosis of the tumor as well as on means to reduce intraoperative hemorrhage. This is of even greater importance when encountering the rare hypervascualr tumors of the CPA, namely hemangioblastoma, hemangiopericytoma and paraganglioma, as misdiagnosis of these tumors presurgically might have detrimental outcomes. To this end, angiography is a crucial diagnostic and therapeutic tool, helping in narrowing both the pre-surgical differential diagnosis as well as the intraoperative bleeding. In addition, due to the high surgical risks associated with resection of vascular tumors in the CPA, non-invasive treatments, such as surgical radiosurgery (SRS), may have a crucial role ¹⁾.