Role of time range between sequential surgical interventions in bilateral cochlear implantation

Abstract

Bilateral cochlear implantation is becoming an optimal method of hearing and speech rehabilitation in patients with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. Therefore, today, general principles for selecting patients for this type of treatment are being developed all over the world, approaches are being formed to determine indications and contraindications. The key argument for determining indications for bilateral cochlear implantation is the patient’s rehabilitation potential, which in turn is formed from a combination of various factors. One of the most significant of them is the time factor—namely, the time interval between the onset of deafness and the performance of surgery. For patients with the first cochlear implantation, the prognosis of rehabilitation is inversely related to the duration of this time delay. And for patients who are planning to install a second cochlear implant with sequential binaural cochlear implantation, the influence of the time factor is still a matter of debate. In our work, we present a description of our successful experience in the rehabilitation of patients with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss of the IV degree (profound) with a large time range (more than 5 years) between successive surgical interventions—cochlear implantations.