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77th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

24.05. - 28.05.2006, Mannheim

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Indications and limits of bone anchored hearing aids (BAHA)

Indikationen und Grenzen der BAHA-Versorgung

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German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 77th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Mannheim, 24.-28.05.2006. Düsseldorf, Köln: German Medical Science; 2006. Doc06hno044

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/meetings/hno2006/06hno044.shtml

Published: September 7, 2006

© 2006 Federspil.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

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The bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA) enables painless hearing all day long, and in better sound quality.

Classic indications of BAHA include i) major ear malformation, ii) chronic otorrhea (chronic external otitis, or draining mastoid cavity e.g.), iii) other conductive hearing loss without the option of surgical restoration of hearing (e.g. the last hearing ear) and iv) impossible fitting of an air conduction hearing aid (e.g. acoustic feedback). A new indication is v) Contralateral Routing Of Signals (CROS) via bone conduction in single sided deafness.

Personal experience includes over 170 BAHAs including 30 children and 46 bilateral fittings. 96% of bilaterally fitted patients actually wear both BAHAs all day long. 2 patients were successfully fitted bilaterally with the BAHA Cordelle II. Especially children progress dramatically in their development.

With the BAHA Cordelle II, a mixed hearing loss with an average sensorineural hearing loss component of up to 70 dB HL can be fitted. However, care should be taken to assure that speech discrimination scores of at least 60% are achieved. The digital BAHA Divino has been released on the market.

In summary, the BAHA is a reliable and safe hearing system. It represents a great progress.