Surgical removal of chondroma of the petrous apex resulting in hearing improvement--case report.

An 18-year-old male presented with a chondroma in the petrous apex manifesting as major complaints of headaches and sensorineural hearing disturbance on the right. Head computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed a neoplastic lesion in the right petrous apex, which had bulged to compress the internal auditory meatus. Surgical removal improved his hearing with normalization of the postoperative air conduction threshold by reduction of the pressure of the internal auditory meatus, suggesting that the function of the cochlea was retained and the tumor was compressing the cochleal nerve at the level of the internal auditory meatus. Histological examination showed the tumor consisted of hyaline cartilage tissue without cellular atypia and the diagnosis was chondroma.