Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 8, 2026
Performing Intracochlear Electrocochleography During Cochlear Implantation
Published on: March 8, 2022
Multichannel cochlear implantation in children with cochlear ossification
1Atlanta Ear Clinic, Georgia, USA.
Insights
Cochlear implantation benefits children with meningitis, even with severe cochlear ossification. Speech understanding outcomes were best in non-ossified cochleas and improved with surgery in ossified ones.
Area of Science:
- Otolaryngology
- Pediatric Audiology
- Neurosurgery
Background:
- Meningitis can lead to cochlear ossification, significantly impacting hearing.
- Cochlear implantation is a potential auditory rehabilitation option for post-meningitic children.
- The extent of cochlear ossification may influence implantation outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the speech understanding results of post-meningitic children who underwent cochlear implantation with partial or complete drill-out to those with no drill-out.
- To evaluate the efficacy of cochlear implantation in pediatric patients with varying degrees of cochlear ossification post-meningitis.
Main Methods:
- Retrospective case review of pediatric patients (2-17 years) who received Nucleus 22 cochlear implants.
- Data collected from a private, tertiary, outpatient clinic between June 1990 and July 1997.
- Speech understanding assessed using open and closed set speech discrimination tests.
Main Results:
- Speech understanding performance was highest in the non-ossified cochlea group.
- Performance was lowest, though still above chance, in the ossified group requiring complete drill-out.
- Children with partial drill-out demonstrated intermediate speech understanding results.
Conclusions:
- Cochlear implantation is beneficial for post-meningitic children, even those with extensive cochlear ossification.
- While non-ossified cochleas yield the best outcomes, surgical intervention can still improve hearing in ossified cases.
- The degree of drill-out required due to ossification correlates with speech understanding performance.
Objective:
To compare results of post-meningitic children who had cochlear implantation with partial or complete drill-out to those who had no drill-out.
Study Design:
This study is a retrospective case review.
Setting:
The Atlanta Cochlear Implant Group is a private, tertiary, outpatient clinic.
Patients:
Eligibility included all our post-meningitic patients, 2-17 years, having a cochlear implant between June 1990 and July 1997.
Interventions:
All subjects had a Nucleus 22 cochlear implant surgically implanted, speech processor programming and follow-up testing in our center, and aural rehabilitation in a variety of therapy settings.
Main Outcome Measure:
Open and closed set speech discrimination tests.
Results:
Test performance for speech understanding was highest in the non-ossified group and lowest, but above chance, in the ossified group with complete drill-out.
Conclusions:
While children with non-ossified cochleas performed best, even children with extensive ossification requiring complete drill-out benefited from cochlear implantation.
