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Impedances were significantly lower in the extended group after 1 month and 6 months of follow up. When the complete and partial hearing preservation groups were compared, the size of round window opening and speed of insertion were found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS Both extended and single-dose therapies result in good hearing preservation in patients who undergo cochlear implantation. However, better impedances can be expected from patients who received extended therapy. A slower speed of insertion and a widely opened round window play a role in hearing preservation.OBJECTIVE The objective of this work was to study the feasibility of minimally invasive cochlear implantation under intraoperative computerized tomography-scan coupled to navigation. MATERIALS AND METHODS Five human resin temporal bones (two adults and three children) were used. Initially, a temporal bone imaging was obtained by the intraoperative CT-scan coupled to the navigation (O-ARM). The navigation-assisted drilling began at the mastoid surface creating a conical tunnel (4-2 mm in diameter) through the facial recess and down to the round window. A cochleostomy was performed based on the navigation. A sham electrode array was inserted in the drilled tunnel and into the cochlea.Postoperative CT-scan and dissection were performed to evaluate the trajectory, and possible injury to the external auditory canal, ossicles, or facial nerve. RESULTS The mean duration of the procedure was 24.4 ± 3.79 minutes (range, 15-35). Cochleostomy was possible in all cases without injury to other structures. The sham array was inside the cochlea in all cases. The mean distance between the drilled canal and the mastoid portion of the facial nerve was 1.2 ± 0.07 mm (range, 1.08-1.38). The mean tracking error was 0.6 ± 0.26 mm (range, 0.20-0.72) at the entry point, 0.6 ± 0.33 mm (range, 0.2-1.02) at the facial nerve and 0.4 ± 0.07 mm (range, 0.36-0.51) at the cochleostomy. CONCLUSION Cochlear implantation through a minimally invasive approach assisted by intraoperative imaging combined with navigation was feasible in operating room environment and experimental conditions.OBJECTIVE Our objective was to compare outcomes in speech and quality of life in those undergoing cochlear implantation for single-sided deafness (SSD), with the aim to characterize the clinical impact of underlying diagnosis in the affected ear and pre-operative hearing status. STUDY DESIGN Prospective case series. SETTING Academic Cochlear Implant Center. PATIENTS 42 adult patients implanted with the diagnosis of SSD. INTERVENTIONS Patients were evaluated at 3-, 6-, and 12-months post-operatively using AZBio sentence and speech, and consonant-nucleus-consonant (CNC) depending on appropriate testing level. Our previously validated Comprehensive Cochlear Implant Quality of Life (CCIQ) questionnaire was administered. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Speech perception, quality of life. Bisindolylmaleimide IX clinical trial RESULTS Subjects were stratified by the underlying diagnosis Meniere’s Disease (MD; n = 10), sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL; n = 13), and Other (eg TBI, acoustic neuroma, progressive, noise-induced; n = 19). Mean preoperative PTA of the implanted ear was 82dB ± 17; that of the nonimplanted ear was 32dB ± 17. SSNHL and MD demonstrated the highest speech perception score at 3 months (93 and 95%), and “Other” demonstrated the lowest scores at 88%. All 3 groups demonstrated nadir in speech scores at 6 months before improving at 12 months, but the “Other” diagnoses maintained the lowest speech testing across all time points. All 3 groups reported improved quality of life on CCIQ. CONCLUSIONS Subjects with SSNHL and MD demonstrate excellent speech perception and quality of life outcomes after cochlear implantation for SSD. Subjects with “Other” diagnoses underlying their SSD demonstrated lower scores on speech testing but nonetheless reported improved quality of life.OBJECTIVE Cochlear implant (CI) users struggle with tasks of pitch-based prosody perception. Pitch pattern recognition is vital for both music comprehension and understanding the prosody of speech, which signals emotion and intent. Research in normal-hearing individuals shows that auditory-motor training, in which participants produce the auditory pattern they are learning, is more effective than passive auditory training. We investigated whether auditory-motor training of CI users improves complex sound perception, such as vocal emotion recognition and pitch pattern recognition, compared with purely auditory training. STUDY DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Tertiary academic center. PATIENTS Fifteen postlingually deafened adults with CIs. INTERVENTION(S) Participants were divided into 3 one-month training groups auditory-motor (intervention), auditory-only (active control), and no training (control). Auditory-motor training was conducted with the “Contours” software program and auditory-only training was completed with the “AngelSound” software program. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Pre and posttest examinations included tests of speech perception (consonant-nucleus-consonant, hearing-in-noise test sentence recognition), speech prosody perception, pitch discrimination, and melodic contour identification. RESULTS Participants in the auditory-motor training group performed better than those in the auditory-only and no-training (p  less then  0.05) for the melodic contour identification task. No significant training effect was noted on tasks of speech perception, speech prosody perception, or pitch discrimination. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that short-term auditory-motor music training of CI users impacts pitch pattern recognition. This study offers approaches for enriching the world of complex sound in the CI user.OBJECTIVES The HiFocus Mid-Scala electrode array (HFms) is designed to sit within the scala tympani without touching either the lateral wall or the modiolus. The aim of this study was to compare the HFms to the Helix perimodiolar electrode array. METHOD Two groups of recipients with Helix (n = 22 ears) and HFms (n = 29 ears) electrode arrays were retrospectively identified and matched by age at implantation and duration of severe to profound deafness. Most comfortable listening levels (M), impedances, Freiburger Monosyllables in quiet, and Oldenburg sentences in adaptive noise were compared at 3, 6, and 12 months postimplant. RESULTS Median scores for monosyllables in quiet for the HFms group were significantly better than the Helix group at each test interval (p  less then  0.05). Speech perception in quiet also significantly improved from 3 to 12 months for both groups (p  less then  0.001). There was no significant difference between the groups for speech in noise. Impedances were significantly lower for the HFms group at 12 months (p  less then  0.