Occurrence of vestibular and facial nerve injury following cerebellopontine angle operations

Abstract

To elucidate how surgery in the cerebellopontine (CP) angle may cause vestibular and facial nerve injury, the 7th and 8th cranial nerves of dogs were manipulated as in human surgery along with monitoring of auditory evoked brain stem responses. Postoperatively, histological examinations were performed to investigate the effect of the surgical manipulations. We found that the occurrence of vestibular, facial and cochlear nerve injury was dependent on the direction of the excessive movement of the nerves in the cerebellopontine (CP) angle. Caudal-to-rostral shift of the nerve trunk most effectively avulsed the vestibular nerve. Haemorrhages were revealed between the vestibular ganglion and the fundus of the internal auditory canal. This caudal-to-rostral retraction could also damage the facial nerve in its intrapetrous labyrinthine portion. This was likely to be one of the pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for postoperative facial nerve palsy occasionally observed in human cases. Rostral-to-caudal retraction of the cerebellum damaged the cochlear nerve selectively. Although caudal-to-rostral retraction, instead of lateral-to-medial one, has been recommended to protect the cochlear nerve, this retraction was shown to be dangerous to the vestibular nerve if excessive. The clinical significance of the fragility of the vestibular nerve was discussed and the importance of preserving the vestibular nerve function is stressed.