Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids in Patients with Acquired and Congenital Unilateral Inner Ear Deafness (Baha CROS): Clinical Evaluation of 56 Cases

Abstract

Poor sound localization in this larger series of patients confirms the findings of previous studies. Improvements in the speech-in-noise scores corroborated the efficacy of the Baha CROS in alleviating the head shadow effect. The 4 different patient questionnaires revealed subjective benefit and satisfaction in various domains.

Analysis of Factors Predicting the Success of the Bone Conduction Device Headband Trial in Patients With Single-Sided Deafness

“…The BCD CROS achieves significant improvement concerning some problems caused by the head shadow effect, which plays a substantial role in the hearing impairment of patients with SSD. 1,2 Subjective benefit analysis by means of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) 3 shows a significant improvement in the ease of communication, conversation in background noise, and conversations with reverberation. [4][5][6] However, it remains difficult to predict which patients with SSD will benefit from BCD CROS treatment.…”

“…Hol et al 2 showed that there is a tendency for speech recognition to improve more with the BCD CROS in patients with congenital SSD compared with patients with acquired deafness. However, sound localization in the unaided condition was better for congenitally deaf patients with, as expected, no statistically significant differences in improvement after BCD fitting.…”

Asymmetric Hearing Loss

“…When the noise source was near the deaf side, the Baha had an equally large detrimental effect [Hol et al, 2010]. Directional hearing scores remained near chance level with the Baha-CROS device.…”

“…The studies concerned bilateral Baha application in 19 adults with acquired bilateral conductive or mixed hearing loss [Bosman et al, 2001], 13 unilaterally fit adults with acquired unilateral conductive hearing loss, second ear was normal [Hol et al, 2005], 56 adults with SSD using the Baha as a CROS device [Hol et al, 2010], unilateral congenital conductive hearing loss (aural atresia) with unilateral Baha in 10 adults [Kunst et al, 2008] and 10 normal-hearing controls. Benefit (score for bilateral vs. unilateral listening) was derived for directional hearing experiments, lifting of acoustic head shadow tests and binaural squelch tests (release from masking).…”

Cochlear Implants in Single-Sided Deafness

“…In contrast to t-CROS, there is a voluminous literature on the efficacy of Baha. In addition to consistent reports of patient satisfaction and increased speech perception in noise, studies show moderate improvements in sound localization ability after Baha [17][18][19]. In comparative studies on the efficacy of Baha versus CROS, investigators have uniformly recommended Baha over CROS or t-CROS for the management of SSD [20][21][22].…”