Impact of unilateral vs. bilateral evaluation on cochlear implant candidacy.

Background: The indication criteria for cochlear implantation differ considerably across regions.

Objectives: To estimate the effects of different candidacy criteria on the number of cochlear implant (CI) candidates.

Methods: We analysed a very large clinical audiological database comprising pure-tone thresholds and speech-audiometric data in order to identify CI candidates on the basis of different audiometric candidacy criteria.

Evolving a Model for Cochlear Implant Outcome.

Background: Cochlear implantation is an efficient treatment for postlingually deafened adults who do not benefit sufficiently from acoustic amplification. Implantation is indicated when it can be foreseen that speech recognition with a cochlear implant (CI) is superior to that with a hearing aid. Especially for subjects with residual speech recognition, it is desirable to predict CI outcome on the basis of preoperative audiological tests.