Subtotal Petrosectomy with Cochlear Implantation or Osseointegrated Hearing Rehabilitation: A Single Institutional Study.

Objective: To examine audiologic outcomes and operative considerations for patients undergoing subtotal petrosectomy (STP) followed by implantable hearing restoration.

Study Design: Retrospective review.

Setting: Tertiary academic referral hospital.

Patients: All patients who underwent STP and implantable hearing restoration from 2014 to 2020.

Interventions: Single or staged STP with cochlear implantation (CI) or placement of an osseointegrated hearing implant (OHI).

Main Outcome Measures: Indications for STP and CI or OHI; postoperative complication and reoperation rates; audiologic outcomes through speech recognition thresholds, AzBio sentence scores, and consonant-nucleus-consonant scores.

Results: Twenty-six adults (age 33-85) and six children (age 1-17) underwent 37 STP procedures with 33 CIs and four OHI. Thirty-one cases were planned single-stage, but six (16%) cases required revision surgery postoperatively due to refractory postauricular infection and breakdown of wound closure. Therefore, 25 cases were single procedures and 12 were staged. Indications for staged procedures included extensive cholesteatoma (n = 5, 42%), chronic middle ear inflammation (n = 5, 42%), and osteoradionecrosis (n = 2, 17%). No patients with OHI required revision surgery. For patients undergoing CI, the mean speech recognition thresholds improved from 80 ± 21 dB to 31 ± 9 dB (p < 0.001), mean aided AzBio scores improved from 11% to 43% (p = 0.002) and aided consonant-nucleus-consonant word scores improved from 6% to 47% (p < 0.001) in quiet.

Conclusions: Subtotal petrosectomy is effective for creating a safe, dry ear in patients with chronic inflammation or anatomically challenging ears. Rehabilitative hearing options following STP can be achieved safely, restoring hearing to an acceptable level with CI. Careful consideration should be undertaken to approach as a single or staged procedure.