Vibrant Soundbridge Middle Ear Implant in Otosclerosis

Abstract

With our growing experience with the Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB) middle ear implant, the question emerged of its indication in mixed hearing loss due to advanced otosclerosis. We describe the VSB implantation technique in primary otosclerosis performed together with a stapedotomy piston procedure. Hearing results under headphone and free-field conditions show that the stapedotomy piston procedure closes the air-bone gap as expected and that the VSB provides comparable gain to that usually recorded for pure sensorineural hearing loss. The gains of the two procedures add up. These results open the field of mixed hearing loss to the VSB middle ear implant.

Vibrant Soundbridge in congenital osseous atresia: multicenter study of 12 patients with osseous atresia

“…The FMT was located directly over the stapes footplate in one case. In one patient a stapedectomy prosthesis was used and assembled together with the FMT on the oval window [5]. In one case the FMT was fixed to the long process of the incus, and finally a fenestration on the promontory was performed in one case.…”

Vibroplasty involving direct coupling of the floating mass transducer to the oval window niche

“…In some special cases of otosclerosis and mixed hearing loss, the floating mass transducer is additionally clipped onto the long process of the incus after the stapes has been substituted by a piston. 7,8 Secondly, the floating mass transducer may be coupled to the round window niche. 2,3,9 -13 This has been hypothesised to produce two effects: (1) bypass of middle-ear pathology; and (2) complete availability of amplification to effect basilar membrane displacement.…”

New chamber stapes prosthesis – A preliminary assessment of the functioning of the prototype

“…In advanced otosclerosis, with severe mixed hearing loss, piston stapes prosthesis often does not result in satisfactory hearing improvement. An alternative option is cochlear implantation [38,39], the Vibrant Soundbridge (VSB) or the Codacs System (Cochlear Ltd., Sydney Australia), together with a piston prosthesis implantation [40,41]. However, all these procedures are expensive, complex and require lengthy operation times.…”