Audiometric and Patient-Reported Outcomes in Single-Sided Deafness Cochlear Implant Recipients Using the CIQOL-35

Describe the effect that cochlear implantation (CI) has on audiometric outcomes and quality of life (QOL) in patients with single-sided deafness (SSD).

Retrospective case review.

Tertiary university hospital system.

Preoperative and postoperative AzBio performance and Cochlear Implant Quality of Life-35 (CIQOL-35) Profile scores in CI patients with SSD were compared, and postoperative measures were compared to those from CI patients without SSD.

Seventeen patients with unilateral CI and contralateral unaided pure-tone averages ≤30 dB were included. The median age was 60.2 (interquartile range [IQR], 50.9-64.9 years), and 7/17 (41%) were women. Median daily use was 8.2 hour (IQR, 5.4-11.9 h). The median preoperative AzBio quiet score in the ear to be implanted was 3% (IQR, 0%-6%). After a median follow-up of 12.0 months, the median postoperative AzBio quiet score was 76% (IQR, 47%-86%) (p < .01). SSD subjects demonstrated statistically significant improvements in median scores on the following CIQOL-35 subdomains following implantation: Entertainment (17 preoperatively vs 21 postoperatively), Listening Effort (12 vs 14), Social (17 vs 22), and Global (28 vs 35; p < .05). SSD patients achieved equal or higher postoperative CIQOL-35 scores in most subdomains (6/7) compared to an age-matched group of non-SSD CI recipients who underwent unilaterally (N = 19) or sequential (N = 6) implantation.

SSD CI patients not only demonstrate significant improvements in speech perception testing in the implanted ear but also exhibit improvement in multiple QOL subdomains on the CIQOL-35, the only validated cochlear implant QOL instrument.