Accuracy of predicting the electrode position in partial cochlear implant insertions

Introduction The partial insertion of long cochlear implant electrode arrays has emerged as a good alternative to the use of short electrode arrays, since reimplantations can be avoided in the event of residual hearing loss. However, the appropriately personalized treatment of the patient requires a prediction of the electrode position in case of partial insertion so that the optimal insertion depth and corresponding frequency coverage can be determined preoperatively. However, there is no validated method for such a prediction currently.

Materials and methods A retrospective study was carried out on the basis of N=10 partially inserted patients, in which the prediction accuracy for the position of the electrode carriers in the case of partial insertions was evaluated using different methods. For this purpose, the lateral wall of the cochlea was identified in the preoperative scans and used as input for different methods for predicting the electrode position.

Results The prediction accuracy for all models is comparable to results from other studies on fully inserted cochlear implant patients. Accuracy increases with the number of cochlear dimensions considered.

Summary Approaches known from the literature for the preoperative determination of the electrode position also provide similar results with regard to the accuracy of the prediction in the examined patients with partial cochlear implant insertions. The virtual insertion approach takes into account the entire 3D profile of the lateral wall for the prediction and provides additional information on the spatial position of the electrode carrier compared to the other methods.

MED-EL

Publication History

Article published online:
12 May 2023