A 10-year in-depth follow-up of post-lingual hearing loss patients with Chinese domestic cochlear implants.

Background: Follow-up of cochlear implant effectiveness is mainly focused on 3 years postoperatively, and studies with more than 5 years of observation are rare, especially for local Chinese brands.

Objectives: Nurotron (Chinese domestic cochlear implant brand) CI recipients who participated in the clinical trial in 2009 were followed-up for 10 years prospectively, providing data to guide doctors and patients.

Material and methods: From December 2009 to April 2010, 57 subjects underwent Nurotron Venus CI surgery at multiple-centers, and were continued to be followed up and assessed at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 years after switch on.

Results: All recipients were successfully implanted with CIs with no difficulty in subsequent use with one reported case of re-implantation at 9 years after implantation. The aided hearing thresholds were significantly improved at one month after switch on (p < 0.0001) and remained stable afterwards for 10 years. Speech recognition scores were significantly higher than pre-operative results (p < 0.05) and continued to improve till 3 years after switch on. At 10 years post-operation, most subjects had improved QOL scores in most sub-items.

Conclusions and significance: Nurotron Venus CI System provides long-term, stable results in hearing speech assistance capabilities and can improve the quality of life of CI recipients.