Bone-Anchored Hearing Implants: Surgical and Audiological Comparison of Different Surgical Techniques

Introduction  The bone-anchored hearing implant system (BAHS) is an effective amplification system that transmits the sounds received by an external operating system to the inner ear by bypassing the middle ear placed in the temporal bone. Objective  This study compares the results of patients who underwent bone-anchored hearing implant system (BAHS) surgery using two different surgical methods in terms of preoperative and postoperative complications, surgical time, audiological findings, and patient satisfaction. Methods  The results of 22 patients who underwent BAHS were evaluated retrospectively from video records and audiological results, The Turkish Version of the Glasgow Benefit Inventory (GBI) questionnaire were evaluated. Two different surgical approaches were used for implantation: the linear incision technique ( n  = 9) and the punch technique ( n  = 13). Results  Mean surgical durations were 9.67 ± 2.85 and 47.65 ± 6.13 minutes for Groups A and B, respectively, and these were significantly different ( p  < 0.001). There were no significant differences between the groups' speech recognition scores for a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of +5 ( p  = 0.173), SNR of 0 ( p  = 0.315), or SNR of -5 ( p  = 0.360) and results of the GBI scores. Conclusion  The punch technique has a significant advantage due to a shorter surgery duration without increased surgical complications. Additionally, the punch technique showed no significant difference in hearing performance or satisfaction compared with linear incision.