Clinical Trial for Cartilage Conduction Hearing Aid in Indonesia

Abstract

Hearing improvement represents one of the may valuable outcomes in microtia and aural atresia reconstruction surgery. Most patients with poor development in their hearing function have had a severe microtia. Conventional methods to improve hearing function are bone conduction and bone anchored hearing aids. Cartilage conduction hearing aids (CCHA) represents a new amplification method. This study assessed the outcomes and evaluated the impact and its safety in the patients with microtia and aural atresia whose hearing dysfunction did not improve after surgery for ear reconstruction in our hospital. Hearing functions were evaluated with pure tone audiometry or sound field testing by behavioral audiometry and speech audiometry before and after CCHA fitting. As a result, there was a significant difference between unaided and aided thresholds (p < 0.001). Speech recognition threshold and speech discrimination level also significantly improved with CCHA. The average functional gains of 14 ears were 26.9 ± 2.3 dB. Almost all parents of the patients reported satisfaction with the performance of CCHA, and daily communication in children with hearing loss also became better than usual.

Examination of Factors Affecting the Likelihood of Whether Individuals Would Purchase Cartilage Conduction Hearing Aids

“…No significant difference in FG was found between purchasers and non-purchasers at any frequency, suggesting that threshold increases in the two groups were similar. Previous reports have also indicated that CC-HAs improved hearing thresholds at all frequencies, regardless of the purchase outcome of CC-HA trials [ 6 , 7 , 17 ]. In summary, this trial of CC-HAs for patients with hearing loss demonstrated a similar functional gain in both non-purchasers and purchasers.…”

“…Certainly, CC-HAs may provide less effective hearing compensation than BC-HAs. However, CC-HAs are small and lightweight, and there is no pain or occurrence of skin laceration due to transducer pressure with a fixation headband, which is common with BC-HAs [ 3 , 4 , 17 , 18 ]. This feature is considered one of the advantages of CC-HAs.…”

“…The limitations of this study included its small sample size, lack of speech audiometry assessment, and absence of any comparison between CC-HAs and other hearing aids (e.g., AC-HAs and BC-HAs). It has already been reported that speech audiometry assessments are improved, as well as the hearing threshold [ 4 , 17 ]. The economic background of patients, which may also influence whether they purchase CC-HAs, was also not examined.…”

Bone and Cartilage Conduction

“…In addition to BC, the current Special Issue covers the topics of cartilage conduction (CC) and soft tissue conduction [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ]. In particular, CC, in which the transducer is placed on the aural cartilage, is highlighted, owing to the benefits and advantages of its devices in atretic ears.…”

“…CC hearing aids have already been used in clinical practice in Japan since 2017 and have gained popularity, surpassing implantable BC devices in terms of the number of new cases. These new hearing devices will be available in other countries [ 11 ], and several patients will benefit from them in the near future. This Special Issue provides up-to-date information on these novel hearing aids.…”