Reliability of cochlear implants.
BACKGROUND
The long-term reliability of cochlear implants over time is an important issue for patients and cochlear implant teams. The calculation of cumulative survival rates including all hard failures of cochlear implants is suitable to report objectively about cochlear implant reliability.


METHODS
This is a report of 192 cochlear implants from different manufacturers in adults (n = 58) and children (n = 134).


RESULTS
The overall cumulative implant survival rate was 91.7% for a period of 11 years. The main reasons for hard failures were design errors of the products and direct or indirect trauma to the cochlea implant site (especially in children) with consecutive breaks of the implant body or electrodes.


CONCLUSIONS
To improve our knowledge about reliability of cochlear implants more studies on cumulative long time survival of cochlear implants are needed, where functional failures and complications for whatever reason (design, mechanical, electronic, medical) are included. Cochlear implant reliability data should be considered during the choice of an implant for each individual patient.
Maurer
Jan
J
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Kath Klinikum Koblenz, Rudolf-Virchow-Strasse 7, 56073 Koblenz, Germany. j.maurer@kk-koblenz.de
Marangos
Nicolaos
N
Ziegler
E
E
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D012086:Reoperation