The super-bass bone-anchored hearing aid compared to conventional hearing aids. Audiological results and the patients' opinions.

Twelve patients with severe mixed hearing loss (PTA ranging from 70 to 108 dB HL) were provided with the percutaneous 'super-bass HC 220' bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) to replace their former hearing aid. Five had previously worn an air-conduction hearing aid (behind-the-ear type, BTE) which could no longer be used because of recurrent otorrhoea; the others had previously worn a conventional (transcutaneous) bone-conduction hearing aid (CBHA) which had caused serious complaints, such as headaches or skin irritation. Free-field speech audiometry in the subgroup of patients who used to wear a CBHA revealed that the maximum intelligibility score with the BAHA was equal to or better than that obtained with the CBHA (range from 0 to +27%). In three of the five patients who used to wear a BTE, the speech scores were poorer with the BAHA than with the BTE (range from -13 to -40%). For the remaining two patients, the difference in scores was 0 and +10%. In conclusion, speech recognition with the BAHA HC220 in the patients with severe mixed hearing loss was comparable to, or better than, that with a CBHA. Compared to an air-conduction hearing aid, the results may be considerably poorer. The results of the questionnaire were in good agreement with the measurements and support the conclusions.