title: Surgical and Audiologic Comparison Between Sophono and Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids Implantation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Bone-anchored hearing aids (BAHA) occasionally cause soft tissue problems due to abutment. Because Sophono does not have abutment penetrating skin, it is thought that Sophono has no soft tissue problem relating to abutment. On the other hand, transcutaneous device's output is reported to be 10 to 15 dB lower than percutaneous device. Therefore, in this study, Sophono and BAHA were compared to each other from surgical and audiological points of view.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 9 Sophono patients and 10 BAHA patients. In BAHA cases, single vertical incision without skin thinning technique was done. We compared Sophono to BAHA by operation time, wound healing time, postoperative complications, postoperative hearing gain after switch on, and postoperative air-bone gap.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean operation time was 60 minutes for Sophono and 25 minutes for BAHA. The wound healing time was 14 days for Sophono and 28 days for BAHA. No major intraoperative complication was observed. Skin problem was not observed in the 2 devices for the follow-up period. Postoperative hearing gain of bilateral aural atresia patients was 39.4 dB for BAHA (n=4) and 25.5 dB for Sophono (n=5). However, the difference was not statistically significant. In all patients included in this study, the difference of air-bone gap between two groups was 16.6 dB at 0.5 kHz and 18.2 dB at 4 kHz. BAHA was statistically significantly better than Sophono.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Considering the audiologic outcome, BAHA users were thought to have more audiologic benefit than Sophono users. However, Sophono had advantages over BAHA with abutment in cosmetic outcome. Sophono needed no daily skin maintenance and soft tissue complication due to abutment would not happen in Sophono. Therefore, a full explanation about each device is necessary before deciding implantation.
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Joong-Wook
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Sung Huhn
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Hong-Joon
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Seung-Chul
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jee-Sun
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Han Q
authors.initials: HQ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Soree Ear Clinic, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Ho-Ki
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Lee
keywords: Aural Atresia, Congenital; Bone Conduction; Hearing Aids; Hearing Loss; Hearing Loss, Conductive