Unilateral cochlear implantation in adults with residual hearing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Outcomes of unilateral cochlear implantation in adults with residual hearing outside the current NICE criteria.
IRAS ID
223186
Contact name
Irumee Pai
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 9 months, 9 days
Research summary
Hearing loss is associated with reduced employment opportunities, greater reliance on health care and increased rates of mental health issues as well as increased mortality. The additional burden of quality of life costs are estimated to be over £30 billion per year in the United Kingdom.\n\nThe efficacy of cochlear implantation in rehabilitation of severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss is now well established and over 400,000 implantations have been performed worldwide to date. Contrary to the initial assumption that any residual hearing must be necessarily destroyed through injury to the intra-cochlear and neural structures during surgery, studies started to emerge in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s that reported feasibility of hearing preservation cochlear implantation. Cochlear implant candidacy continues to expand and “hybrid” electroacoustic stimulation (EAS) has been made possible by preservation of residual hearing through soft surgical techniques, improved implant designs and technological advances in sound processing strategies. This in turn means that cochlear implants, which used to be reserved for those with profound deafness only, are benefiting an increasing number of individuals with debilitating hearing loss.\n\nCurrently in the United Kingdom (UK) funding for cochlear implantation in the National Health Service (NHS) is determined by a set of strict criteria set by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which were published in 2009 and last reviewed in 2011. Our study, funded by Oticon Medical, proposes to examine the efficacy of unilateral cochlear implantation in hearing rehabilitation for adult patients who do not derive adequate benefit from hearing aids but whose residual hearing thresholds or function puts them outside the current NICE criteria. Patients will only be considered for potential recruitment after vigorous candidacy assessment and a full discussion in the hearing implant multi-disciplinary team meeting (MDT), as per the current practice within St. Thomas’ Hearing Implant Centre.\n
REC name
South West - Frenchay Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/SW/0260
Date of REC Opinion
27 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion