Hearing rehabilitation with Baha® transcutaneous and percutaneous systems.

Purpose: Longitudinally verify the influence of auditory tonal thresholds obtained with transcutaneous and percutaneous bone-anchored hearing aids on speech perception in individuals with external and/or middle ear malformation and chronic otitis media.

Methods: Observational, retrospective, longitudinal follow-up study of 30 unilateral users of the transcutaneous and percutaneous Baha® system for the collection of secondary data on pure tone thresholds obtained through free field audiometry and sentence recognition threshold in silence and noise in conditions: without the prosthesis; at the time of activation; in the first month of use (post 1); and in the third month (post 2).

Results: There was a significant difference between pure tone thresholds obtained at frequencies of 3 and 4kHz with better results for the percutaneous technique at all evaluation moments.

Communicative and Hearing Performance in Individuals with Cochlear Implants and Delayed Neuropsychomotor Development: A Longitudinal Analysis.

 Between 15% to 30% of individuals with bilateral prelingual sensorineural hearing loss present with associated disabilities. Cochlear implant (CI) is an alternative treatment that provides consistent access to environmental and speech sounds, which results in significant benefits regarding quality of life and auditory and language development.  To study the auditory and communicative performance of individuals with CI and delayed neuropsychomotor development after a minimum of five years using the device.

Complications and audiological results of percutaneous bone-anchored hearing devices.

Objective: To describe the post-operative complications and audiological results related to percutaneous bone-anchored hearing devices.

Methods: A retrospective review was conducted of 44 patients with bilateral conductive or mixed hearing loss who were implanted with unilateral Baha Connect or Ponto devices. A generalised linear model for repeated measurements was used.

Cochlear Implantation through the Middle Fossa Approach: A Review of Related Temporal Bone Studies and Reported Cases.

 Middle fossa approach has been suggested as an alternative for patients in whom other routes of electrode insertion are contraindicated. Even though there are temporal bone studies about the feasibility of introducing the cochlear implant through the middle fossa, until now, very few studies have described results when cochlear implant surgery is done through this approach.  The objective of this study is to review a series of temporal bone studies related to cochlear implantation through the middle fossa and the results obtained by different surgical groups after cochlear implantation through this approach.

Speech perception performance of double array multichannel cochlear implant users with standard and duplicated maps in each of the arrays.

Objective: The present investigation evaluated the speech perception performance of patients with ossified cochlea implanted with the 24M Double Array cochlear implant, using standard and duplicated maps in each of the arrays.

Study Design: Retrospective case review.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Vestibular schwannoma: 825 cases from a 25-year experience.

Introduction:  Acoustic nerve tumors have been recognized as a clinico-pathologic entity for at least 200 years, and they represent 90% of cerebellopontine angle diseases. Histologically, the tumors are derived from Schwann cells of the myelin sheath, with smaller tumors consisting of elongated palisade cells, while in large tumors, cystic degeneration can be found in the central areas, possibly due to deficient vascularization. We retrospectively reviewed 825 cases of vestibular schwannomas, reported between January 1984 and August 2006, in which the patients underwent surgery to remove the tumor.

Post-lingual deafness: benefits of cochlear implants vs. conventional hearing aids.

Unlabelled: The technological advances in cochlear implants and processing strategies have enabled subjects affected by severe to profound hearing loss to hear sounds and recognize speech in various different degrees. The variability of hearing outcomes in subjects with post-lingual deafness has been significant and cochlear implant indications have been extended to include an ever larger population.

Objective: This paper aims to look into the groups of post-lingual deafness patients to find where cochlear implants have yielded better outcomes than conventional hearing aids.

Neural response telemetry in patients with the double-array cochlear implant.

This study aimed to evaluate the neural response in double-array cochlear implant as well as to describe the refractory recovery and the spread of excitation functions. In a prospective study 11 patients were implanted with the double-array cochlear implant. Neural response telemetry (NRT) was performed intra-operatively.

The role of magnetic resonance imaging in the postoperative management of cholesteatomas.

Unlabelled: Conventional CT and MRI scans have low specificity when it comes to differentiating granulation tissue from relapsing cholesteatoma.

Aim: this paper aims to analyze the use of DWI and delayed post-contrast T1-weighed imaging in the detection of recurring cholesteatomas.

Materials And Method: this is a cross-sectional prospective study that looked at 17 cholesteatoma patients postoperatively.

Psychoacoustic dynamic range and cochlear implant speech-perception performance in nucleus 22 users.

Background: Cochlear implant speech processors compress a wide acoustical dynamic range of sounds into a smaller electrical dynamic range. Some patients show wider electrical dynamic ranges than others and most of them have good speech perception performance. The knowledge of the average psycho-acoustical dynamic range in adults will help the audiologist program children who do not give reliable responses.

Influence of evoked compound action potential on speech perception in cochlear implant users.

Unlabelled: Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential is a measure of synchronous cochlear nerve fibers activity elicited by electrical stimulation of the cochlear implant. The electrophysiological nerve responses may contribute to explain the variability in individual performance of cochlear implant recipients.

Aim: To compare speech perception tests performances of cochlear implant users according to the presence or absence of intraoperative neural telemetry responses.

[Oral language of children with five years of experience using [corrected] cochlear implant].

Background: Cochlear implant (CI) in children.

Aim: 1) to delineate a profile of receptive and expressive verbal language of children who have been using cochlear implant for five years and five years and eleven months; 2) to verify the influence of time of auditory sensorial privation in the receptive and expressive verbal language of these children.

Method: 19 children users of CI with auditory deficiency acquired before language development, who have been using CI for 5y - 5y11m and who have an average time of sensorial privation of 3y (standard deviation of 1 year).