Open Access
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Laryngorhinootologie 2018; 97(S 02): S170
DOI: 10.1055/s-0038-1640298
Abstracts
Otologie: Otology

The New Auditory Midbrain Implant – Second Clinical Trial

KH Dyballa
1   Medizinsche Hochschule Hannover, Hannover
,
H Lim
2   Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, USA
,
A Samii
3   INI Hannover, Hannover
,
H Metwali
3   INI Hannover, Hannover
,
R Salcher
4   MHH, Hannover
,
R Dengler
5   MHH, INI Hannover, Hannover
,
A Illg
4   MHH, Hannover
,
A Giourgas
4   MHH, Hannover
,
A Büchner
4   MHH, Hannover
,
T Lenarz
4   MHH, Hannover
› Author Affiliations
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    Introduction:

    During 2006 – 2008, five deaf patients were implanted at Hannover Medical School (MHH) with a novel hearing prosthesis within the inferior colliculus (IC), known as the single-shank auditory midbrain implant (AMI). It has a straight array of 22 sites (by Cochlear Limited) and was developed as an alternative to the auditory brainstem implant (ABI) for people especially with Neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2) who have no intact hearing nerve and where a cochlear implant is ineffective. However, hearing performance for the five AMI patients consisted mainly of improvements in lip-reading similar to that of ABI patients with NF2.

    Methods:

    Further animal and human studies showed that the limited hearing performance was likely related to suppressive effects in the IC induced by temporal stimulation patterns when presented on a single-shank array. Therefore, a new AMI having two shanks in parallel was developed (11 sites along each shank) and is going to be implanted in five patients in a second clinical trial at MHH funded by National Institutes of Health (U01DC013030). Different clinical tests will be performed for example pitch ranking or scaling, with the goal to develop a better stimulation strategy that improves speech performance.

    Results:

    In 2017 the first patient was implanted without complications, the implant is running well, and we got initial data so far.

    Conclusions:

    It could be shown a safe implantation of a two-shank AMI and that we could collect first data. Nevertheless, further testing is needed to collect more data though.


     

    No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).

    Karl-Heinz Dyballa
    Hörzentrum, Medizinsche Hochschule,
    Karl-Wiechert-Allee 3, 30625,
    Hannover

    Publication History

    Publication Date:
    18 April 2018 (online)

    © 2018. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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