Objective and subjective evaluations of the Nurotron Venus cochlear implant system via animal experiments and clinical trials

• Published in: Acta oto-laryngologica Vol. 136; no. 1; pp. 68 - 77
• Main Authors: Gao, Na, Xu, Xin-Da, Chi, Fang-Lu, Zeng, Fan-Gang, Fu, Qian-Jie, Jia, Xian-Hao, Yin, Yan-Bo, Ping, Li-Chuan, Kang, Hou-Yong, Feng, Hai-Hong, Wu, Yong-Zhen, Jiang, Ye
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Informa Healthcare 02.01.2016
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Animals; Audiometry, Pure-Tone; Cadaver; Cats; Child; Cochlear implant; Cochlear Implantation; Cochlear Implants; electrically evoked auditory brainstem responses (EABR); electrically evoked stapedius reflex threshold (ESRT); Hearing Loss - diagnosis; Hearing Loss - etiology; Hearing Loss - therapy; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Middle Aged; MRI; Nurotron; pitch ranking; speech perception; Young Adult; pitch ranking; MRI; electrically evoked stapedius reflex threshold (ESRT); Cochlear implant; electrically evoked auditory brainstem responses (EABR); speech perception; Nurotron
• ISSN: 0001-6489; 1651-2251
• DOI: 10.3109/00016489.2015.1086022

Conclusion: This study described objective and subjective evaluations of the Nurotron® Venus™ Cochlear Implant System and indicated that this system produced a satisfactory performance. Objective: To observe the performance of the Nurotron® Venus™ cochlear implant (CI) system via electrophysiological and psychophysical evaluations. Methods: A 26-electrode CI system was specially designed. The performance of MRI in animal and cadaveric head experiments, EABR in cats experiment, the correlation between ESRT and C level, and psychophysics evaluations in clinical trials were observed. Results: In the animal and cadaveric head experiments, magnet dislocation could not be prevented in the 1.5 T MRI without removal of the internal magnet. The EABR was clearly elicited in cat experiment. In the clinical trial, the ESRT was strongly correlated with C level (p < 0.001). The human clinical trial involving 57 post-lingually deafened native Mandarin-speaking patients was performed. Residual hearing protection in the implanted ear at each audiometric frequency was observed in 27.5-46.3% patients post-operatively. A pitch ranking test revealed that place pitches were generally ordered from apical to basal electrodes. The recognitions of the perceptions of 301 disyllabic words, environment sounds, disyllabic words, and numerals were significantly better than the pre-operative performance and reached plateaus.