Extra benefit of a second cochlear implant with respect to health-related quality of life and tinnitus.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate whether the second cochlear implant (CI) provides any extra benefit with respect to health-related quality of life, tinnitus, and auditory abilities.

DESIGN

The data were evaluated using validated questionnaires before and after the first and second CI supply. Preimplantation data were collected retrospectively.

PATIENTS

Forty postlingually deafened adults, 11 male and 29 female subjects were included in this study. All patients were sequentially bilaterally implanted with a multi-channel CI for at least 6 months.

RESULTS

The health-related quality of life assessed with the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire further increased after the second CI. In patients with initially higher level of tinnitus annoyance measured with the Tinnitus Questionnaire, the scores decreased after the first CI and remained steady after the second CI. Patients with initially lower level of tinnitus annoyance had a further decrease of the Tinnitus Questionnaire score after the second CI. Additionally, the second CI induced further improvement of auditory abilities, as assessed by the Oldenburg Inventory and the Freiburg monosyllable test in quiet and the HSM and Oldenburg sentence tests in noise. The quality of life scores correlated with the auditory abilities, especially after the second CI.

CONCLUSION

The present study provides evidence that the second CI leads to further increase in quality of life and reduction of tinnitus annoyance in addition to improvement of auditory abilities as compared with the first CI. Patients with bilateral CIs benefit from additional positive effects in all these fields.