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Evaluating speech perception of the MAXUM middle ear implant versus speech perception under inserts
R Kent Dyer1, Michael Spearman2, Brian Spearman2
1Department of Surgery and on the Board of Directors at the Hough Ear Institute, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
Objectives/Hypothesis:
To evaluate the speech perception of the Ototronix MAXUM middle ear implant relative to the cochlear potential for speech perception of patients.
Study Design:
Clinical study chart review.
Methods:
We performed an evaluation of data from a prospective clinical study of 10 MAXUM patients. Primary outcome measures included comparison of word recognition (WR) scores with MAXUM (WRMAXUM ) versus word recognition under inserts (WRinserts ), and the functional gain improvement for pure-tone average (PTA) (0.5, 1, and 2 kHz) and high-frequency pure-tone average (2, 3, and 4 kHz).
Results:
Ten ears in 10 adult patients (six female; average age 68.7 years) were included. The average speech perception gap (difference between WRinserts and WRMAXUM ) with MAXUM was -9.2% (range, -26% to 4%). A negative number indicates that WRMAXUM was higher than the WRinserts . The average PTA with MAXUM was 23.1 dB (range, 18.7-30 dB), a 38.0-dB gain over the preoperative unaided condition (range, 20-53.3 dB). The average high-frequency pure-tone average with MAXUM was 34.4 dB (range, 26-43.3 dB), a 42.8-dB gain over the preoperative unaided condition (range, 32.3-58.7 dB).
Conclusions:
These data demonstrate that a significant, very strong correlation was observed between WRinserts and WRMAXUM scores (r = 0.86, P = .001), and a patient's WRinserts score may be used to reasonably predict the word recognition outcomes with MAXUM.
Level Of Evidence:
4. Laryngoscope, 128:456-460, 2018.
