Cochlear reimplantation with same device: surgical and audiologic results.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: To study to what extent it is possible to achieve identical insertion depths and to maintain the same performance after cochlear reimplantation.

STUDY DESIGN

Outcome research on a retrospective case series in a tertiary university referral center.

METHODS

Data were collected for 12 adults and three children who underwent reimplantation during the last 3 years with a new HiRes90K device with HiFocus 1J electrode owing to failure of the feed-through seal. Multislice computed tomography scans were used to compare positions of the original and newly placed electrode arrays. The speech-perception scores on a consonant-vowel-consonant word test before and after reimplantation were compared.

RESULTS

All reimplantations were successfully performed by two experienced cochlear implantation surgeons, and no complications were observed. Postoperative imaging showed that the average displacement of the new implant was only 0.59 mm. Reactivation of the implant gave immediate open set speech understanding in all patients, and speech perception rapidly returned to the previous level obtained with the original implant within weeks; it was even significantly better at the 3-month follow-up. No relation was found between changes in performance and the amount of displacement of the electrode array.

CONCLUSIONS

After cochlear reimplantation with the same device, electrode-array position can be accurately replicated and speech perception can be regained or even improved within weeks.