[Extended preoperative speech audiometric diagnostics for cochlear implant treatment].

Background: For severe hearing loss and even profound deafness, cochlear implants (CIs) have become the treatment of choice. For establishment of the CI indication, the preoperative Freiburger monosyllabic word recognition (EV) at 65 dB SPL in free field with a hearing aid (EV65) and the maximal understanding (mEV) without a hearing aid with headphones results are important. The goal of this retrospective study was to analyse the correlation of word recognition with a hearing aid at 80 dB SPL (EV80) and mEV.

Quality-assured training in the evaluation of cochlear implant electrode position: a prospective experimental study.

Background: The objective of this study was to demonstrate the utility of an approach in training predoctoral medical students, to enable them to measure electrode-to-modiolus distances (EMDs) and insertion-depth angles (aDOIs) in cochlear implant (CI) imaging at the performance level of a single senior rater.

Methods: This prospective experimental study was conducted on a clinical training dataset comprising patients undergoing cochlear implantation with a Nucleus® CI532 Slim Modiolar electrode (N = 20) or a CI512 Contour Advance electrode (N = 10). To assess the learning curves of a single medical student in measuring EMD and aDOI, interrater differences (senior-student) were compared with the intrarater differences of a single senior rater (test-retest).

Artificial Polysialic Acid Chains as Sialidase-Resistant Molecular-Anchors to Accumulate Particles on Neutrophil Extracellular Traps.

Neutrophils are involved in numerous immunological events. One mechanism of neutrophils to combat pathogens is the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Thereby, neutrophils use DNA fibers to form a meshwork of DNA and histones as well as several antimicrobial components to trap and kill invaders.