Postoperative hearing and speech performance
During the follow-up visits, audiological examinations were performed to observe the dynamics of all patients’ postoperative hearing and speech recovery. The encouraging audiological outcomes revealed that CI had positive effect on hearing rehabilitation.
All 11 patients were diagnosed with profound bilateral SNHL before surgery. The average hearing threshold was more than 80 dB, with mean SDS scores with hearing aids of less than 70%. The mean PTA and SDS scores obtained at the last follow-up examination were 39.5 ± 5.0 dB and 95.0 ± 9.7% (mean ± standard deviation), respectively.
The mean CAP and SIR scores obtained before CI and at the last follow-up examination were 1.8 ± 1.0 versus 5.9 ± 0.8 and 1.5 ± 0.5 versus 4.1 ± 0.7, respectively, which were significantly better than the preoperative ones (paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P = 0.000 < .05) (Table 3).