Impact of unilateral vs. bilateral evaluation on cochlear implant candidacy.

BACKGROUND

The indication criteria for cochlear implantation differ considerably across regions.

OBJECTIVES

To estimate the effects of different candidacy criteria on the number of cochlear implant (CI) candidates.

METHODS

We analysed a very large clinical audiological database comprising pure-tone thresholds and speech-audiometric data in order to identify CI candidates on the basis of different audiometric candidacy criteria. In particular, we simulated the effects of three different CI candidacy criteria.

RESULTS

The bilateral evaluation of CI candidacy has the strongest influence on the number of potential CI candidates. Additionally, the cut-off criteria for middle-ear implants have a large effect on numbers of candidates when air conduction has deteriorated.Conclusions and Significance: Expanding the indication criteria opens up the possibility of improving the accurate identification of individual cases suitable for cochlear-implant provision.