The COACH Trial, v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The COACH trial: A randomised controlled trial of cochlear implantation versus hearing aids in adults with severe hearing loss.
IRAS ID
297574
Contact name
Douglas Hartley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingahm
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN15352106
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
In the UK, cochlear implants are provided to some people with severe or profound hearing losses who do not get enough benefit from their hearing aids. For these people, cochlear implants can improve people’s ability to recognise sounds and understand speech. Currently, only these adults are offered a cochlear implant on the NHS. This trial aims to find out whether some adults who are not currently offered a cochlear implant on the NHS would benefit more from a cochlear implant than they would from using hearing aids alone. These people are those whose hearing or speech test results are just outside of the range that would make them eligible for a cochlear implant on the NHS. We do not yet know if cochlear implantation is a good treatment option, compared to hearing aids for these people. In the trial, half of the people will receive a cochlear implant, and the other half will receive new hearing aids (or can choose to continue to wear their own). People will be randomly assigned (by a computer) to one of the two groups.
After all trial data is collected from all people, we will compare how well the two groups can understand speech after 9 months.REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/SW/0098
Date of REC Opinion
7 Sep 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion