Cochlear Implant Referral Criteria for the Spanish-Speaking Adult Population

To evaluate the effectiveness of the "60/60 Guideline" in a diverse patient population.

Retrospective review.

Tertiary referral center.

Data were collected for adult patients (18 years and older) who underwent a cochlear implant evaluation (CIE) between January 2016 and March 2021.

Development of the "60/60 Guideline" has provided better clarity on when to refer English-speaking patients for a CIE. Our study evaluated the effectiveness of this referral tool in the Spanish-speaking population.

In our group of patients who underwent a traditional CIE (n = 402), 209 met unaided and aided traditional cochlear implant (CI) candidacy criteria. Of the 193 individuals who did not meet both components of traditional candidacy criteria, a majority met the aided component (86%) but only 4.6% met the unaided component. When applying the 60/60 Guideline to patients who met traditional criteria, there is a sensitivity rating of 84.7% and a specificity index of 50.3%. For English and Spanish speakers who met traditional criteria but did not meet the 60/60 Guideline, a majority (83.3% English, 87.5% Spanish) had a better ear word recognition score (WRS) greater than 60%, suggesting the unaided WRS is the more restrictive component of the "60/60 Guideline."

Application of the "60/60 Guideline" is an effective method to identify potential CI candidates in the English-speaking population; however, it was less effective in the Spanish-speaking population. Spanish-speaking adults should be referred for a CIE when better ear pure tone average is greater than 60 dB hearing loss, regardless of their unaided WRS. This study highlights the need for inclusion of nonlinguistic test measures in the CI referral criteria and test battery to reduce CI access barriers for patients who speak a language other than English.