title: The addition of a contralateral routing of signals microphone to a unilateral cochlear implant system--a prospective study in speech outcomes.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the study was to investigate the potential clinical advantages of incorporating a contralateral routing of signals (CROS) microphone in unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prospective study was undertaken on a group of 21 postlingually deafened adults who were all implanted with the same multichannel CI system.
  
  
  METHODS
  Performance with a unilateral CI was compared with performance using both a unilateral implant and a CROS microphone system worn on the opposite site (CI-CROS). Speech understanding using the AzBio sentence was evaluated in quiet, with speech presented at 0° and 270° azimuth in the horizontal plane. Speech understanding in noise was performed with speech at 0°, and noise at 0°, 90°, and 270°.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A significant gain in speech understanding using CI-CROS compared to the unilateral CI alone was found in quiet when speech was presented at 270° (average improvement of 8.8%, P < .01). Participants also demonstrated statistically significant improvement using CI-CROS compared with the unilateral CI alone when noise was presented at 90° and speech at 0° (average improvement of 6.7%, P < .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adding a contralateral microphone to a unilateral CI resulted in a significant improvement in speech understanding in different conditions. This method could provide a greater cost/benefit ratio than bilateral CIs and be a potential improvement for those who are not candidates for bilateral CIs.
authors: Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors: Roochi
authors: R
authors: Arora
authors: Hosam
authors: H
authors: Amoodi
authors: Suzanne
authors: S
authors: Stewart
authors: Lendra
authors: L
authors: Friesen
authors: Vincent
authors: V
authors: Lin
authors: Julian
authors: J
authors: Nedzelski
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003054:Cochlear Implants; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D046088:Hearing Loss, Unilateral / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013017:Sound Localization; D013067:Speech Perception; D013069:Speech Reception Threshold Test