Preliminary performance of cochlear implants in post-lingual patients with auditory neuropathy

Abstract

Conclusions: Auditory restoration can be obtained by using cochlear implants (CIs) in post-lingual patients with auditory neuropathy (AN). However, improvements in postoperative speech recognition for these patients varied. Objectives: The primary purpose of this study was to assess the postoperative performances of two post-lingual AN patients after receiving CIs. Methods: Two post-lingual AN patients received unilateral CIs and the efficacy of the implants was then evaluated. One patient was female with bilateral mid-severe hearing loss and received an implant at age 28 years. The second patient was male with severe hearing loss and he received an implant at age 15 years. The postoperative performance for both patients was evaluated. Results: After using the CI for 6 months, the hearing ability of both subjects was improved by the CI with an average post-implant threshold of 35 dB and 44 dB, respectively. The woman made significant progress in speech recognition with an open-set spondee recognition score of 55% and sentence recognition in quiet score of 90%. Sentence recognition in noise scores were 94% (SNR = +10 dB), 88% (SNR = +5 dB), and 80% (SNR = 0 dB). The boy achieved improved recognition scores for monosyllables (40%) and disyllables (26%), but poor sentence recognition both in quiet (0%) and in noise (0%).

Keywords::

• Speech recognition
• sentence recognition
• auditory restoration

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (#2012CB967900; 2011CBA01000), National Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (#2007AA02Z150), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (#30730040), Science and Technology Innovation Nursery Foundation of PLA General Hospital (12KMM29), the military medical metrology research project (2012-JL1-028), and Clinical Research Supporting Foundation of PLA General Hospital (2012FC-TSYS-3056).

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.