Cochlear implantation in children with auditory neuropathy: outcomes and rationale.
CONCLUSIONS
Children with auditory neuropathy (AN) obtain considerable benefit from cochlear implantation. Their performance outcomes are as good as those of implanted children with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). The neural status of children with AN would be comparable to that of children with SNHL and be suitable for cochlear implantation.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of cochlear implantation in children with AN and to assess the status of auditory nerve in these patients.


METHODS
Nine children with AN who underwent cochlear implantation were included. Their performance outcomes which were measured by Categories of Auditory Performance (CAP), Monosyllabic Word (MW) test for phonemes, and Common Phrases test were compared with those of matched implanted children with SNHL. To assess the status of auditory nerve in children with AN, the slopes of amplitude growth functions of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) in implanted children with AN were compared to those of implanted children with SNHL.


RESULTS
There were no statistically significant differences between two groups in performance outcomes (CAP, p=0.1200; MW test, p=0.5768; Common Phrases test, p=0.3337). No significant difference was found in the slopes of ECAP amplitude growth functions (p=0.970) between two groups, which shows that spiral ganglion cell populations may be comparable in these two groups.
Jeong
Sung-Wook
SW
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, Dong-A University, Busan, Korea.
Kim
Lee-Suk
LS
Kim
Bo-Young
BY
Bae
Woo-Yong
WY
Kim
Jae-Ryong
JR
D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014724:Vestibular Function Tests; D000160:Vestibulocochlear Nerve Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*