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).