Prediction of Early Postoperative Language Function by Quantitative Evaluation with Visual and Auditory Naming Tasks during Awake Craniotomy for Brain Tumor Resection: Significance of Auditory Naming Task

Language tasks for monitoring intraoperative language symptoms have not yet been established. This study aimed to examine whether the quantitative evaluation of language function with visual and auditory naming during awake craniotomy predicts early postoperative language function in patients. Thirty-seven patients with brain tumors in the language-dominant hemisphere were included. They underwent visual and auditory naming preoperatively and at the end of tumor resection for intraoperative evaluation. Using the Western Aphasia Battery, their overall language functions were evaluated preoperatively, early postoperatively (within 1 week), and late postoperatively (after 1 month). The preoperative and intraoperative changes in the visual and auditory naming scores were significantly correlated with most of the Western Aphasia Battery score changes between the preoperative and early postoperative evaluations, which was more remarkable for auditory naming. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that changes in the auditory naming score predicted the preoperative to early postoperative changes in the aphasia quotient of the Western Aphasia Battery. Receiver operating characteristics analysis showed a higher area under the curve or discriminative power for auditory than visual naming in predicting the development or exacerbation of aphasia in the early postoperative period. Considering the analyses applied separately for low- and high-grade glioma, auditory naming, which taps into a wider range of linguistic functions, may be more informative than visual naming as language evaluation in awake craniotomy for the early postoperative development of aphasia, especially for patients with high-grade glioma.