Vibrant soundbridge versus conventional hearing aid in sensorineural high-frequency hearing loss: a prospective study

The present study was aimed to compare gain and speech intelligibility measured in quiet and in noise between the Signia hearing aid and the Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB), both devices using the same sound processing technology.

A prospective longitudinal study was performed. Six patients with a steeply sloping high-frequency hearing loss were selected.

The protocol comprised 3 months' hearing aid use, VSB implantation, and 3 months' VSB use.

Patient performances were evaluated unaided and aided by audiologic assessments, including free-field thresholds and word recognition tasks in quiet and in noise.

Statistical analysis revealed a slight decrease in overall frequencies in pure-tone audiometry after surgery; however, this decrease did not exceed 5 dB and was not different from the changes that occurred in the contralateral nonimplanted ear. The measures of aided and unaided hearing thresholds showed statistically significant larger gains with the VSB than with the hearing aid. In quiet, speech performances were poorer unaided than with either device. Because of ceiling effects, statistically significant higher scores with the VSB than with the hearing aid were only observed at the lowest intensity level. In noise, speech intelligibility was reported to be better with the VSB compared with both unaided and with the hearing aid at 5 signal-to-noise ratios.

This prospective study demonstrated that direct-drive stimulation provided by the VSB allows better speech performances than acoustic stimulation for rehabilitation of patients with steeply sloping high-frequency hearing losses.