A Clinical Evaluation of Minimally Invasive Ponto Surgery With a Modified Drill System for Inserting Bone-Anchored Hearing Implants.

Objective: To compare 6-months outcomes of the modified minimally invasive Ponto surgery (m-MIPS) to both the linear incision technique with soft tissue preservation (LIT-TP), and original MIPS (o-MIPS) for inserting bone-anchored hearing implants (BAHIs).

Study Design: Exploratory pilot study with one test group and two historical control groups.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Patients: In the test group, 24 patients (25 implants) were prospectively included. Each control group comprised 25 patients (25 implants) who participated in previously conducted clinical trials.

Interventions: The test group received a BAHI using m-MIPS. The two control groups underwent surgery using the LIT-TP and o-MIPS, respectively.

Main Outcome Measures: Implant survival, implant stability, and surgery-related variables were compared between the test and control groups. Soft tissue status, skin sensibility, and subjective numbness were compared between m-MIPS and LIT-TP only.

Results: Implant survival was comparable between m-MIPS and LIT-TP, whereas implant stability measurements were slightly lower for m-MIPS. M-MIPS resulted in comparable adverse skin reactions and skin sensibility, significantly reduced surgical time and slightly improved subjective numbness, compared with LIT-TP. Between m-MIPS and o-MIPS, no statistically significant differences in implant survival, implant stability and surgical time were observed.

Conclusions: A trend toward lower implant loss rates after m-MIPS was observed, when compared with o-MIPS. M-MIPS seems to be a good alternative to LIT-TP for inserting BAHIs, since most clinical outcomes were either comparable or slightly better for m-MIPS. Upon deciding on which technique to use, larger studies on implant survival should be performed. Furthermore, other aspects such as costs, training aspects and surgical experience should be evaluated.