Early fitting in cochlear implantation in comparison to fitting after a standard healing phase

With the early fitting, the ENT university clinic Frankfurt provides the opportunity to activate the speech processor of cochlear implant patients only a few days after surgery. Up to now, the speech processor has been activated 4 – 5 weeks following implantation in order to ensure sufficient wound healing in the implanted area. The development of surgery techniques and instruments leads to smaller wounds and allows faster wound healing. Hence, the speech processor can already be activated 2 – 3 days following implantation.

The early fitting procedure corresponds to the standard fitting procedure after 4 – 5 weeks: After checking the implant function, the comfortable (C) and threshold (T) levels are adjusted according to the patient's subjective responses. At early fitting an additional questionnaire is handed out to the patient, audiologist and ENT physician during the first fitting appointment and also at the 3-, 6- and 12-months visit. The patient's questionnaire evaluates the subjective satisfaction with the early fitting procedure. In the ENT questionnaire medical side effects like wound healing problems are documented. Technical aspects are evaluated in the audiological questionnaire. The early fitting of the speech processor was feasible for 58 of 60 patients. In comparison to the control group (n = 60) no increase in medical complications, for example by wearing the speech processor on the fresh wound, was observed. Both groups show an equivalent development in speech recognition over time as well as a comparable daily processor usage. With the early fitting the time between implantation and first fitting was reduced by 24 days (mean), thus the procedure enables a much earlier activation of the hearing implant.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)