gms | German Medical Science

Background: Cochlear Implantation is developed to a routinely performed therapy concept in all patients with profound, bilateral hearing loss. Nevertheless complications and device failures are occurring and reimplantations are necessary.

Method: In a retrospective study we analysed the patients reimplanted in Hannover since 1985 (n=92). All patients (N=2957) are returning in the first 3 years all 6 months and after this period at least annually to the implanting clinic. The reason for the surgical intervention was analysed out of the patients chart.

Results: The reason for reimplanting the patients were seen in device failure, infection of the implant itself or infection including cholesteatoma of the middle ear. 42 adults and 50 children had to be reimplanted. Surgical challenges could be accomplished in all patients. The speech understanding in adults was better with the new implant. The development of hearing and speech understanding in children could be pursued.

Conclusion: Although the medical complications and failure rate of the implant products are decreasing reimplantations of CI has to be expected especially in patients implanted during childhood. We can demonstrate that the results can be controlled and in nearly all adults speech understanding increases. The development of speech understanding in children was disturbed but not decreased. All children experienced a good outcome with the reimplantation.