Audit of Bilateral Simultaneous Cochlear Implantation in Pediatric Population: South Indian Study.

Objective: To conduct a medical audit of bilateral simultaneous cochlear implantation (CI) in patients with severe prelingual sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL).

Methods: A medical audit of a tertiary care ear, nose, and throat center in Southern India was conducted on data collected from January 2007 to December 2014. All cochlear implantees <6 years of age with severe bilateral SNHL who underwent bilateral simultaneous CI were included in the present study. The exclusion criteria were children >6 years, sequential bilateral CI, revision cases, abnormal or malformed cochlea, and children with global developmental delay in milestones. Subjective outcome scores used were Category of Auditory Performance (CAP) and Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR).

Results: The CAP and SIR results showed that 20% of implantees achieved peak scores of 7 and 5, respectively. Mean CAP and SIR scores at 12 months were 5.4 and 3.1, respectively.

Conclusion: The present study supports the claim that bilateral CI in severe prelingual bilateral SNHL is better than unilateral and recommends that bilateral CI should be the standard of care in children.