title: Hearing benefits of second-side cochlear implantation in two groups of children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the additional bilateral benefits of a second cochlear implant (CI) in a group of young children (<6 years of age) and a group of older children (>6 years of age).
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a Belgian tertiary multi-centre study in which 33 CI-children with a second implant between the age of 2 and 12 participated. Assessments took place pre-second implant and at several time intervals post-fitting on pure tone audiometry and speech recognition in quiet and noise (+10 dBSNR). Testing was done with the first and second implant alone and bilaterally. Results were analysed separately for children younger and older than 6 years at the time of implantation of the 2nd CI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After 18 months of bilateral implant use all children obtained significantly higher hearing thresholds in the bilateral condition in comparison to both the unilateral conditions (p(CI1)=0.035/p(CI2)=0.042 for the younger children and p(CI1)=0.021/p(CI2)=0.007 for the older children). The speech recognition scores in quiet were for all children superior in the bilateral condition (p(CI2)=0.011 for the younger children and p(CI1)=0.016/p(CI2)=0.003 for the older children). In the noisy condition only significant bilateral better results were obtained in the group of younger children (p(CI1)=0.028/p(CI2)=0.034).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Bilateral cochlear implantation offers advantages to all children. Even for the children who received a second implant after the age of 6 a progress is determined after 18 months. However, the data appear to show a beneficial performance for those children who received their second implant before the age of 6, especially in the more challenging conditions.
authors.affiliation: Univ. Dept. ORL, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerp University, Wilrijkstraat 10, 2650 Edegem, Belgium. Fanny.Scherf@uza.be
authors.forename: Fanny
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Scherf
authors.forename: Lieselot
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van Deun
authors.forename: Astrid
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: van Wieringen
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wouters
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Desloovere
authors.forename: Ingeborg
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dhooge
authors.forename: Erwin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Offeciers
authors.forename: Naïma
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Deggouj
authors.forename: Leo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: De Raeve
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Bodt
authors.forename: Paul H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Van de Heyning
mesh_terms: D001299:Audiometry; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019929:Cochlear Implantation; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male