title: Cochlear implants and bacterial meningitis: A speech recognition study in paired samples.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cochlear implants may guarantee sound perception and the ability to detect speech at a close-to-normal hearing intensity; however, differences have been observed among implantees in terms of performance on discrimination tests and speech recognition.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To identify whether patients with post-meningitis deafness perform similarly to patients with hearing loss due to other causes.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective clinical study involving post-lingual patients who had been using Nucleus-22 or Nucleus-24 cochlear implants for at least 1 year. These patients were matched with respect to age (± 2 years), time since the onset of deafness (± 1 year), and the duration of implant use with implant users who had hearing loss due to other causes. Speech perception was assessed using the Portuguese version of the Latin-American Protocol for the Evaluation of Cochlear Implants.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The sample consisted of 52 individuals (26 in each of the 2 groups). The post-meningitic group had a median of 18.5 active electrodes. The group with hearing loss due to other causes had a median of 21, but no significant statistical difference was observed (p = 0.07). The results of closed- and open-set speech recognition tests showed great variability in speech recognition between the studied groups. These differences were more pronounced for the most difficult listening tasks, such as the medial consonant task (in the vowel-consonant-vowel format).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cochlear implant recipients with hearing loss due to bacterial meningitis, who had been using the device for 1 year performed more poorly on closed- and open-set speech recognition tests than did implant recipients with hearing loss due to other causes.
authors.affiliation: Otolaryngologist, PhD. Associate Professor, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Rubens
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: de Brito
authors.affiliation: Otolaryngologist, PhD student. Neurotology Fellow, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Aline Gomes
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Bittencourt
authors.affiliation: Audiologist, PhD in Human Communication Disorders (Speech Pathology). Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Maria Valéria
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Goffi-Gomez
authors.affiliation: PhD student. Cochlear Implant Fellow, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Ana Tereza
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Magalhães
authors.affiliation: Cochlear Implant Fellow, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Samuel
authors.affiliation: Otolaryngologist, PhD. Associate Doctor, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Robinson Koji
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Tsuji
authors.affiliation: Otolaryngologist, PhD. Professor and Chairman, Department of Otolaryngology, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Ricardo Ferreira
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Bento
keywords: Cochlear implants; Meningitis; Speech perception