engleski

Early and long-term postoperative auditory results of Vibrant Soundbridge implanted adults

Objectives: The aim of this work is to illustrate the early and long-term hearing threshold results of adults patients implanted with a Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB) middle ear implant. Materials and method: The authors report their experience of 4 VSB implantations in sensorineural hearing losses. In all patients approach by mastoidectomy and posterior tympanotomy was made. The VSB was attached on the incus with the titanium clip. Functional hearing gain was analyzed via pure-tone audiometry (PTA) and speech audiometry (SA) with VBS off and on in quiet and in noise. Results: The impact of VSB one day after surgery resulted in conductive or mixed hearing loss in all frequencies between 125 Hz and 12000 Hz. Air-bone gap (ABG) was between 5 dB and 25 dB. Two to six days after surgery there was no change in ABG. Seventh postoperative day ABG was reduced 5 to 10 dB. The most significant reduction of ABG was 10th to 14th postoperative day. Two weeks after the surgery, the hearing threshold was on the same level as it was preoperativelly. Long-term we observed a mean functional gain of 33.5 dB (0.5-4 kHz) in PTA. The speech reception threshold in quiet shows a mean gain of 28 dB, whereas in noise, it requires a signal-to-noise ratio up to 10 dB greater than normal-hearing controls. All patients are daily users of their VBS device. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that direct-drive stimulation provided by the VSB allows good speech performances for rehabilitation of patients with sensorineural hearing losses.

hearing implant; vibrant soundbridge; hearing loss

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