Implantable Drug Reservoir Devices for Inner Ear Delivery of Pharmacotherapeutics.

Objective: Cisplatin is a platinum-based chemotherapeutic drug that secondarily induces toxicity in inner ear sensory epithelia, contributing to auditory and vestibular dysfunction. We describe the creation of a drug reservoir device (DRD) to combat this ototoxicity for the duration of chemotherapy. As ototoxic side effects of chemotherapy may limit an oncologist's ability to prescribe first-line agents such as cisplatin, mitigating such devastating effects through prolonged topical therapy would be tremendously valuable.