Introduction:
Cochlear implantation of children suffering from deafness has become a medical standard for many years. This paper is a review about the cause of reimplantation of children who got a cochlear implant in the years 1989 to 1997. In this time period first experiences about surgical intervention in children suffering from long-term deafness were obtained.
Methods:
42 patients (aged between 1,92 to 16,25 years) were analyzed in retrospect. They were treated in a university hospital. In total 45 reimplantations were examined.
Results:
The most occurred causes of reimplantations in children were Hard Failures and Failures caused by trauma. In some Hard Failure-cases case-cracks were found intra-surgically or they were described in the manufacture's Investigation Reports. One company, which used implant-cases made of ceramic, was exceedingly represented. Those cases were sensitive to traumatic impacts. The company improved those cases and made them stronger until they used other case-materials.
The time interval between first implantation and reimplantation was 10,23 years (mean value).
In 36 reimplantations the reinsertion of the electrodes was performed without any complications. In 3 of 7 problematic reimplantations a hindered insertion in the first implantation had already been occurred. Nonetheless all patients were provided with a new implant.
Conclusions:
The feasibility of a successful reimplantation in children has been proved in the examined time interval. One of the next steps would be examining the results more closely to detect the factors which influence the outcome of a reimplantation.
Also the examined time interval will be extended to include improved technologies and implants which might change the development of reimplantation-surgery and -outcome.
