Benefits of late-onset cochlear implantation in adults with prelingual hearing loss

Backgroud Late-onset cochlear implantation in adults with prelingual hearing loss has been controversially discussed for years. The aim of this study was to find out whether patients benefit from late CIs even in the absence of audiometric benefits.

Methoden Analysis of all prelingually deafened patients without relevant speech development (N  = 32) who were fitted with unilateral (18/32) or bilateral (14/32) CIs after the age of 18 at the University Hospital Erlangen from 01/2000- 06/2022. Subjective advantages of CI implantation, development of hearing ability with regard to noise perception and audiometric speech understanding, influences on hearing rehabilitation, such as average wearing time, postoperative complications and reasons for explantation were analysed.

Ergebnisse  30 out of 32 patients (93.8%) reportet a subjective hearing improvement after CI implantation. 11 patients (34.4%) showed increased phonetic imitations or an improvement in the pronunciation of existing single words after CI fitting ( > 1 year). The objective audiometric measurement showed an average monosyllable and polysyllable comprehension of 6.2% and 27.5%, respectively, at 65dB ( > 1 year). Postoperatively, tinnitus developed in 7 patients (21.9%) and dizziness or headache in 2 patients each (6.3%). 20 patients (62.3%) had no complaints after CI fitting. One patient had to be explanted after 57 months due to severe depressions.

Summary The group of prelingually deaf patients is very heterogeneous. Despite a high selection of the collective, our study shows a discrepancy in the audiometric outcome. Nevertheless, even in the absence of objectively measurable benefits, most patients reported a subjective benefit from CI fitting.

 

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Conflict of Interest

The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication History

Article published online:
24 May 2022