EAONO position statement on vestibular schwannoma: Imaging assessment question: How should growth of vestibular schwannoma be defined?

Abstract

The relevance of defining the growth of vestibular schwannoma (VS) is that any significant VS growth may impact treatment strategy. A conservative treatment strategy is often proposed as a primary treatment option in the management of VS. Several authors have demonstrated that a significant proportion of VSs do not grow, and those that do, usually grow slowly. Surgical and/or radiosurgical treatment options may be offered to the patient according to the VS growth. Therefore, defining the VS growth is a determinant in managing treatment strategies. A comprehensive literature search was performed to examine the definition of tumor growth for VS. The literature review was conducted using PubMed and Em-base databases dated back to 20 years (1995–2015) and was updated until February 2015. VS growth should be measured on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. Although there the overall quality of the present studies is low, all highlight a significant VS growth of >2 mm, and/or 1.2 cm3, and/or 20% change in volume, and/or the square of the product of the 2 orthogonal diameters. We suggest that VS growth should instead change management strategies when a 3-mm increase in diameter on two consecutive MRI scans are performed 1 year apart.