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Use of DTT to Define Facial Nerve Position in Vestibular Schwannomas

NCT04057976 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 38

Last updated 2025-09-12

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Vestibular schwannomas (VS) arise from the vestibulocochlear (hearing and balance) nerve, located at the base of the brain. Although benign, VS can enlarge over time, resulting in debilitating symptoms; therefore, surgical removal is frequently offered. One significant risk of surgery is inadvertent injury to the facial nerve, which lies adjacent to the vestibulocochlear nerve. Currently, the nerve's course is only revealed during surgical dissection and injury can cause permanent facial weakness. It would therefore be useful for the surgeon to know the course of the nerve before operating. To this end, a new MRI technique known as probabilistic diffusion tensor tractography (DTT) has shown potential in revealing the course of the facial nerve pre-operatively. However, its clinical reliability remains uncertain.

This study aims to investigate the reliability of DTT in identifying the course of the facial nerve preoperatively in patients undergoing surgery for VS.

The future benefit would be to enable surgeons to operate with more confidence and potentially reduce the chance of nerve injury.

The study will recruit adult patients due to have surgery for VS. The only change to the participants' clinical pathways will be the addition of a DTT sequence to their pre-operative MRI scans (increasing scanning time by approximately 10 minutes).

Conditions

  • Vestibular Schwannoma

Interventions

DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Probabilistic diffusion tensor tractography

Patients enrolled in this study will undergo probabilistic diffusion tensor tractography (additional MRI sequence) preoperatively in order to determine whether this it is possible to determine the course of the facial nerve.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

    collaborator OTHER

  • King's College Hospital NHS Trust

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Steve Connor, MBBS, FRCR · King's College Hospital NHS Trust

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
DIAGNOSTIC
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2019-06-27
Primary Completion
2024-12-31
Completion
2024-12-31

Countries

  • United Kingdom

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04057976 on ClinicalTrials.gov