The Predictive Value of Preoperative Measurements of Cochlear Nerve Diameters From MRT and Postoperative Speech...

The current study aims to investigate whether objective measurements of the cochlear nerve (CN), derived from preoperative MRI images, correlate with postoperative speech perception in CI patients.

Retrospective cohort study.

University Medical Center, tertiary academic referral center.

Patients undergoing a cochlear implant surgery including MED-EL (Synchrony 2, FLEX electrode series; MED-EL, Innsbruck, Austria) Cochlear (slim straight electrodes; Cochlear Ltd., Sydney, Australia), Advanced Bionics (HiRes Ultra 3D CI, HiFocus SlimJ electrodes; Sonova, Zürich, Switzerland), and Oticon (Neuro Zti EVO; Oticon A/S, Smørum, Denmark) between 2020 and 2023.

Preoperative MRI images were utilized to measure the volume of the modiolus (VM), the cross-sectional areas of the CN (ACN), and for normalization, the area of the facial nerve (AFN) and the area of the internal ear canal (AIEC). Postoperative speech perceptions were assessed through word recognition scores (WRS) at several stages following the first fitting (FF) of the CI processor: immediately after FF, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after FF.

Sixty-eight patients were enrolled in this study. A statistically significant positive correlation between the ratio between ACN and AFN (ACN/AFN) and WRS FF was identified ( R  = 0.36, p  < 0.003). However, this correlation disappeared in subsequent follow-up tests. Moreover, upon grouping patients based on their degree of asymmetrical hearing loss, it was observed that the correlation was primarily driven by patients with moderate to severe asymmetrical hearing loss (AHLm) on the contralateral side ( R  = 0.62, p  = 0.0003).

The present results suggest that assessing the size of the CN through MRI has limited predictive utility for postoperative speech perceptions during CI consultations. This limitation seems to be particularly relevant for AHLm patients and is confined to the initial activation period.