Multichannel auditory brainstem implant: US clinical trial results

Since 1994, a US Food and Drug Administration clinical trial evaluated the multichannel auditory brainstem implant (ABI) on 92 subjects with neurofibr omatosis type 2 (NF2). The trial has shown that 85 per cent of patients receive auditory sensation s. A small number of patients demonstrate a clinically significant degree o f open-set sentence recognition in the sound-alone condition; however, when the ABI is combined with lip-reading cues, 93 per cent of patients demonst rate improved sentence understanding at three to six months. In addition, t he majority of recipients report daily use of their devices, and satisfacti on with the decision to receive the ABI.