A Transcutaneous Active Middle Ear Implant (AMEI) in Children and Adolescents: Long-term, Multicenter Results.

Objective: Evaluation of the long-term safety and performance of an active middle ear implant (AMEI) in the treatment of hearing loss in children and adolescents with a primary focus on improvement in speech discrimination.

Study Design: Prospective, multicentric, single-subject repeated-measures design in which each subject serves as his or her own control.

Subjects: Thirty-one pediatric subjects aged 5 to 17 years.

Cochlear implant and inflammation reaction: Safety study of a new steroid-eluting electrode.

Dexamethasone is a common anti-inflammatory agent added to cochlear implants to reduce hearing loss due to electrode insertion trauma. We evaluated the safety of eluting silicone rods containing 10% dexamethasone in a Guinea pig model. Animals were implanted with a dexamethasone eluting silicone electrode (DER) or with a non-eluting electrode (NER).

The Vibrant Soundbridge in Children and Adolescents: Preliminary European Multicenter Results.

Objective: Evaluation of safety and efficacy of the Vibrant Soundbridge in the treatment of hearing loss in children and adolescents with primary focus on improvement in speech discrimination.

Study Design: Prospective, single-subject repeated-measures design in which each subject serves as his/her own control.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

A soft-surgery approach to minimize hearing damage caused by the insertion of a cochlear implant electrode: a guinea pig animal model.

Objective: A "soft surgery" technique was applied, using various types of specifically designed dummy electrodes, to mimic cochlear implantation in a guinea pig model, and the degree of hearing-preservation/cochlear damage was assessed.

Methods: Tricolor guinea pigs were divided into 3 groups: group A were implanted with electrodes without any contacts or wires (soft electrode), group B were implanted with electrodes having a metallic wire inside (stiff electrode), and group C underwent a cochleostomy procedure without implantation. Compound action potentials, in the range of 4 to 32 kHz, were used to assess electrophysiologic changes in the hearing function presurgery and postsurgery.

Speech-in-noise and subjective benefit with active middle ear implant omnidirectional and directional microphones: a within-subjects comparison.

Objectives: 1) To evaluate speech understanding in noise by comparing signal-to-noise ratios for 50% correct word understanding (SNR50) using an omnidirectional and a directional microphone audio processor (AP) in 4 different noise conditions. 2) To compare subjective speech understanding abilities, spatial hearing abilities, and qualitative hearing performance with the 2 processors.

Study Design: A prospective, single-subjects repeated-measures study design was used to compare speech understanding performance with the 2 APs acutely and after 6 weeks' acclimatization time.