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At the Western Section Meeting of the Triological Society, Douglas A. Chen, MD, Frank M. Rizer, MD, and Derald E. Brackmann, MD, reviewed their experience at the Otologic Medical Group, Los Angeles, with radiation therapy for acoustic tumors. They were able to find only five patients in the records of the Otologic Medical Group who had undergone radiation therapy for acoustic neurinoma. They observed that tumor growth had been arrested in four of the five patients, and that one patient required surgery because of progressive tumor growth. Hearing was lost after radiation therapy in two of the five patients. None of these five patients had useful hearing. Two patients also demonstrated multiple cranial nerve neuropathies. The authors concluded that most of the reports favoring radiotherapy for acoustic neuromas currently come from Scandinavia, and that the present available information suggests that surgery remains the treatment of choice for resectable acoustic neuromas.—