Long-term Outcomes of Cochlear Implantation in Children With Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection.

Objective: To investigate the role of the developmental delay often observed in children with congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection on the improvement of language understanding after cochlear implantation (CI).

Study Design: Retrospective chart review.

Patients: Sixteen children with severe and/or profound hearing loss due to congenital CMV infection (CMV group) and 107 congenitally deaf children (168 ears) without CMV infection as the cause of deafness (non-CMV group). Mean age at which patients underwent CI was 2.9 years in both groups. The mean follow-up period was 7.8 versus 8.2 years, respectively.

Interventions/main Outcome Measures: The Enjoji Scale of Infant Analytical Development was used to evaluate/compare pre- and postoperative hearing level, word recognition score, speech discrimination score, and language production and perception skills. The Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised was used to assess vocabulary understanding skill. Correlation between the final vocabulary understanding skill assessment and several factors was also examined.

Results: Improvement in hearing thresholds (mean: 106.0 dB) was greater after the first CI, (27-45 dB; mean: 33.8 dB) compared with hearing aid (48-74 dB; mean: 63.1 dB). Similarly, language perception and production were better in the CMV group. However, in the long term, differences between good and poor cases became prominent, especially in children with motor or cognitive delay and brain abnormalities who performed poorly in the CMV group.

Conclusion: Long-term language perception and production after CI were overall satisfactory in congenital CMV-deafened children. CI was effective, particularly in the absence of CMV-induced disorders. However, this effectiveness was limited in those with motor or cognitive delay.