The 8.5mm abutment in children: the Birmingham bone-anchored hearing aid program experience.
OBJECTIVE
To the best of our knowledge, the use of the 8.5-mm abutment and its long-term outcome in the pediatric population has not been reported in the medical literature. We describe our experience with the use of the 8.5-mm abutment in a series of 16 children who have required a long abutment.


METHODS
Retrospective case series review.


METHODS
Tertiary hospital.


METHODS
Patients younger than 16 years who had an 8.5-mm bone-anchored hearing aid abutment fitted.


METHODS
Use of an 8.5-mm bone-anchored hearing aid abutment.


METHODS
Indications and complications with using the 8.5-mm abutment.


RESULTS
We have used the longer abutment on both 3- and 4-mm fixtures. We have found the need to use it particularly around the time of puberty when we observed soft tissue problems develop. Follow-up after insertion of the long abutment ranged from 6 months to 6 years. There was 1 fixture extrusion 2 years after a long abutment had been fitted.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, we have found the long abutment to be useful in a selected pediatric population.
Doshi
Jayesh
J
ENT Department, Birmingham Children's Hospital, Birmingham, UK. jayeshdoshi@hotmail.com
McDermott
Ann-Louise
AL
Reid
Andrew
A
Proops
David
D
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids / Q000009:adverse effects; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019919:Prosthesis Implantation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D053441:Suture Anchors / Q000009:adverse effects; D016896:Treatment Outcome