More than a quarter century of cochlear implantations: a retrospective study on 1161 implantations at the Antwerp University Hospital

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we aimed to describe the demographic profile of all 1161 implantations performed in the last 27 years, including sex, (evolution of) age at implantation, side of implantation, and rate of reimbursed cases; to identify the differences between the adult and the pediatric cochlear implant (CI) population; to describe the etiology of hearing loss in the adult and pediatric CI population; and to investigate the number and causes of the re-implantations. Methods: We performed a retrospective demographic analysis of all 1161 cochlear implantations performed at the Antwerp University Hospital between August 1993 and November 2020. Results: The vast majority of the adult population presented with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (89%) of an unknown etiology (52%) and was unilaterally implanted at a median age of 60 years. In the pediatric population with congenital profound hearing loss, the median age at first implantation decreased significantly over time. During the past five years, the median age at first implantation was 12 months or younger for children with congenital hearing loss. A genetic cause was the most common etiology in children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (53%). Of all implantations, 4% were re-implantations. Re-implantations were performed on average ten years after the first implantation, and the most common reason for re-implantation was implant failure (76%). Conclusion: This study described the profile of 1161 adult and pediatric implantations between the start in 1993 and 2020 that were performed at the Antwerp University Hospital in parallel with the evolution of the Belgian reimbursement criteria.

Pathogenic Variants in the COCH Gene That Lead to Hearing Loss and Vestibular Deficit: Update on DFNA9 and Introducing DFNB110

“…Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implantation Hearing rehabilitation in patients with SNHL includes acoustic hearing aids to amplify sounds for patients with mild-to-moderate SNHL and unilateral CI for cases of severe-to-profound SNHL for whom amplification does no longer lead to meaningful speech perception. 53 Despite histopathological evidence of spiral ganglion degeneration, we have demonstrated earlier that CI in DFNA9 patients results in improvements of speech understanding equivalent to other etiologies of postlingual SNHL. 54 Due to the increased risk of incident dementia in patients with severe-to-profound SNHL, CI should be offered as soon as hearing aids do not offer adequate speech understanding.…”

CONTRALATERAL HEARING AID USE IN ADULT COCHLEAR IMPLANT RECIPIENTS: Retrospective analysis of auditory outcomes

“…90 dB nHL to ! 75 dB nHL) (Mertens et al 2021). Although bilateral implantation provides superior hearing outcomes in adults compared to bimodal hearing (Blamey et al 2015;de Graaff et al 2021;Dorman et al 2016;Potts and Litovsky 2014;Yawn et al 2018) and is regarded as the standard of care in several jurisdictions ( Van de Heyning et al 2022), at the time of writing, bilateral implantation in adults is not reimbursed in Belgium.…”