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82nd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

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

01.06. - 05.06.2011, Freiburg

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Does residual hearing in the non-implantat ear influence the postoperative performance after Cochlear Implantation?

Meeting Abstract

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  • corresponding author presenting/speaker Melanie Teschendorf - Department of Otolaryngology, University of Essen, Essen, Germany
  • Heike Bagus - Cochlear Implant Centrum Ruhr, Essen, Germany
  • Stephan Lang - Department of Otolaryngology, University of Essen, Essen, Germany
  • Diana Arweiler-Harbeck - Department of Otolaryngology, University of Essen, Essen, Germany

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 82nd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Freiburg, 01.-05.06.2011. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2011. Doc11hno47

doi: 10.3205/11hno47, urn:nbn:de:0183-11hno479

Published: August 3, 2011

© 2011 Teschendorf et al.
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.

Outline

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Introduction: : In asymmetric hearing loss often the worse-hearing ear received a cochlear implant. Aim of the study was to investigate if residual hearing in the non-implanted ear has influence on the postoperative speech comprehension.

Material and Methods: Between 2007 and 2009 seventy-two postlingually deafened adults received a unilateral cochlear implant at our clinic. Patients were divided into two groups according to the preimplantation pure-tone averages: bilateral profound, profound in one ear /severe in the other. There was no significant difference in the age at implantation and duration of deafness among the two patient groups. Language skills and audiological data were assessed by standard tests (Freiburg words/numbers test, Oldenburg Sentence Test, Aachen test for aphasia).

Results: :The group with bilateral profound hearing loss performed poorer in all above-mentioned tests compared with the patients with residual hearing in the non-implanted ear.

Conclusion: The presence of residual hearing in at least one ear is associated with better speech discrimination results with cochlear implant. There is no apparent disadvantage to implantation in the worse-hearing ear in patients with asymmetrical hearing loss.