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An unusual cause of cochlear implant failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2007

D. M. Thomas ,
S. Abramovich  and
S. Rakkar-Thomas
D. M. Thomas*
Affiliation:
Department of Otolaryngology, St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY.
S. Abramovich
Affiliation:
Department of Otolaryngology, St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY.
S. Rakkar-Thomas
Affiliation:
Department of Otolaryngology, St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1NY.
*
Address for correspondence: Mr D. M. Thomas, Registrar in ENT, Department of Otolaryngology, St Mary's Hospital, Praed Street, London W2 1 NY.
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Abstract

We present a cochlear implant failure previously unidentified and unreported. Following successful implantation and activation of a Cochlear Mini 22 system, a distressing barrage of crackling noises was heard by the patient despite repeated programming with threshold and comfort level adjustment. The implant soon became nonfunctional and integrity testing showed deficient electrical responses and abnormal surface measured wave forms. Investigation of the explant, following reimplantation with an identical system, showed a defective trim capacitor, an electric component of the internal circuit in the stimulator. Paired Student's t-test showed a marginally significant increase (p = 0.047) in effective threshold level and a highly significant decrease (p = 0.0002) in maximum comfort level for the second implant compared to the first implant.

Keywords

Cochlear implant, complications
Type
Clinical Records
Information
The Journal of Laryngology & Otology , Volume 109 , Issue 6 , June 1995 , pp. 542 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 1995

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Footnotes

This paper was presented at The 2nd European Symposium on Cochlear Implantation, Montpellier, France, May 1994.

References

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