Dataset related to article "Surgical treatment for vestibular schwannoma in patients aged ≥65-years: A retrospective multi-centric study "

This record contains raw data related to article “Surgical treatment for vestibular schwannoma in patients aged ≥65-years: A retrospective multi-centric study"

The worldwide older population is significantly increasing in recent decades, particularly in Western countries. However, there is a lack of data regarding risks and benefits in neurosurgical practice for this subgroup of patients, which often leads to challenging decision-making processes.

Vestibular schwannomas (VS) are benign tumors, having a peak incidence in the 6th and 7th decades of life. VSs represent approximately 6 % of all intracranial and 80 % of cerebellopontine angle (CPA) tumors, and incidence rates are increasing over time, ranging from 0.2 to 1.7 per 100,000 population. Regarding the older population, the question of what should be the optimal treatment of VS is still a matter of debate. Indeed, life expectancy and physiological reserves for recovery are relatively lower in this subgroup of patients. Moreover, the presence of any underlying comorbidity could increase the risk of both intra and postoperative complications . In this context, most of the recent body of literature appears to favor conservative approaches (wait-and-see strategy) and other treatment options such as hypo-fractionated radiotherapy (RT) or stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). Nevertheless, in selected cases, surgical treatment could represent the method of choice some recent reports suggest that surgery could be a safe and feasible approach in selected cases. For instance, factors such as the presence of a large lesion leading to hydrocephalus, progressive neurological deficits due to compression of the surrounding neurovascular structures, cerebellar and/or brainstem edema, and severe persistent vestibular dysfunction must be considered and represent major criteria for surgery.

In the present study, we reported our experience with 31 patients aged ≥65-year-old who underwent surgical resection for VS.