TY - JOUR A1 - Zahnert, Thomas A1 - Löwenheim, Hubert A1 - Beutner, Dirk A1 - Hagen, Rudolf A1 - Ernst, Arneborg A1 - Pau, Hans-Wilhelm A1 - Zehlicke, Thorsten A1 - Kühne, Hilke A1 - Friese, Natascha A1 - Tropitzsch, Anke A1 - Lüers, Jan-Christoffer A1 - Mlynski, Robert A1 - Todt, Ingo A1 - Hüttenbrink, Karl-Bernd T1 - Multicenter Clinical Trial of Vibroplasty Couplers to Treat Mixed/Conductive Hearing Loss: First Results JF - Audiology and Neurotology N2 - Objective: To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of round window (RW), oval window (OW), CliP and Bell couplers for use with an active middle ear implant. Methods: This is a multicenter, long-term, prospective trial with consecutive enrollment, involving 6 university hospitals in Germany. Bone conduction, air conduction, implant-aided warble-tone thresholds and Freiburger monosyllable word recognition scores were compared with unaided preimplantation results in 28 moderate-to-profound hearing-impaired patients after 12 months of follow-up. All patients had previously undergone failed reconstruction surgeries (up to 5 or more). In a subset of patients, additional speech tests at 12 months postoperatively were used to compare the aided with the unaided condition after implantation with the processor switched off. An established quality-of-life questionnaire for hearing aids was used to determine patient satisfaction. Results: Postoperative bone conduction remained stable. Mean functional gain for all couplers was 37 dB HL (RW = 42 dB, OW = 35 dB, Bell = 38 dB, CliP = 27 dB). The mean postoperative Freiburger monosyllable score was 71% at 65 dB SPL. The postimplantation mean SRT50 (speech reception in quiet for 50% understanding of words in sentences) improved on average by 23 dB over unaided testing and signal-to-noise ratios also improved in all patients. The International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA)quality-of-life questionnaire was scored very positively by all patients. Conclusion: A significant improvement was seen with all couplers, and patients were satisfied with the device at 12 months postoperatively. These results demonstrate that an active implant is an advantage in achieving good hearing benefit in patients with prior failed reconstruction surgery. KW - conductive hearing loss KW - mixed hearing loss KW - vibroplasty KW - couplers KW - middle ear implant Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-199129 SN - 1420-3030 SN - 1421-9700 N1 - This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively. VL - 21 IS - 4 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Joachim A1 - Brill, Stefan A1 - Hagen, Rudolf A1 - Moeltner, Alexander A1 - Brockmeier, Steffi-Johanna A1 - Stark, Thomas A1 - Helbig, Silke A1 - Maurer, Jan A1 - Zahnert, Thomas A1 - Zierhofer, Clemens A1 - Nopp, Peter A1 - Anderson, Ilona T1 - Clinical Trial Results with the MED-EL Fine Structure Processing Coding Strategy in Experienced Cochlear Implant Users JF - ORL N2 - Objectives: To assess the subjective and objective performance of the new fine structure processing strategy (FSP) compared to the previous generation coding strategies CIS+ and HDCIS. Methods: Forty-six adults with a minimum of 6 months of cochlear implant experience were included. CIS+, HDCIS and FSP were compared in speech perception tests in noise, pitch scaling and questionnaires. The randomized tests were performed acutely (interval 1) and again after 3 months of FSP experience (interval 3). The subjective evaluation included questionnaire 1 at intervals 1 and 3, and questionnaire 2 at interval 2, 1 month after interval 1. Results: Comparison between FSP and CIS+ showed that FSP performed at least as well as CIS+ in all speech perception tests, and outperformed CIS+ in vowel and monosyllabic word discrimination. Comparison between FSP and HDCIS showed that both performed equally well in all speech perception tests. Pitch scaling showed that FSP performed at least as well as HDCIS. With FSP, sound quality was at least as good and often better than with HDCIS. Conclusions: Results indicate that FSP performs better than CIS+ in vowel and monosyllabic word understanding. Subjective evaluation demonstrates strong user preferences for FSP when listening to speech and music. KW - pitch KW - CIS+ KW - OPUS KW - fine structure processing KW - cochlear implant KW - coding strategy KW - speech perception KW - music Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-196396 SN - 0301-1569 SN - 1423-0275 N1 - This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively. VL - 74 IS - 4 ER -