Short electrode insertion in cochlear implantation: speech perception performance of Cantonese-speaking subjects

Subjects with cochlear ossification derived benefits in terms of speech performance similar to those of the non-ossified group. It is thus recommended that the insertion of short electrode arrays should be considered an alternative choice for patients with cochlear ossification.

Cochlear ossification has been recognized as a major obstacle to the full insertion of a multichannel cochlear implant electrode array. To alleviate the technical difficulty of placing a standard electrode array and the possibility of causing undesirable trauma to the cochlea, a newly designed electrode array with the same number of electrodes compressed into a shorter length has been made available. The aim of the present study was to examine the speech perception performance of patients implanted with the MED-EL C40+S compressed electrode array and to compare their results with those of matched groups implanted with the MED-EL C40+standard electrode array.

One pre-lingually and two post-lingually deaf subjects using short electrode arrays were matched with three groups of subjects using standard electrode arrays. The pre- and postoperative speech perception scores were evaluated.

All three subjects using compressed electrode arrays achieved speech perception scores comparable to those of matched subjects using standard electrode arrays. There was also a tendency for the subjects to show similar patterns of speech perception scores as a function of the difficulty of the tests.