Restoration of Binaural Hearing with the Audiant Implant following Acoustic Neuroma Surgery

Abstract

Experience with the use of The Audiant Bone Conductor hearing implant in 8 patients who had unilateral profound hearing loss following acoustic neuroma surgery shows it to beneficial. Patients must have good hearing by bone conduction in the opposite uninvolved ear to be a candidate. Patients with unilateral hearing loss have the choice of doing nothing and getting along with one ear, they may be fitted with a CROS (contralateral routing of the signal) hearing aid or they may use the bone conductor hearing implant. Our experience suggests that patients prefer the bone conductor hearing implant since the resulting binaural hearing sounds more natural and an instrument needs to be worn on only one side. A surgical technique and new instrumentation to minimize the size and extent of the surgeries is described. The surgical implantation is usually done one month after acoustic neuroma surgery and is performed under local anesthesia in the outpatient surgery.