Results of the bone-anchored hearing aid in unilateral hearing loss

Objectives: The advantages of binaural hearing are well established and uni versally accepted. However, a tendency remains to withhold the benefits of binaural hearing to adults and children with one normal ear. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the benefit of the bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) in a group of patients with unilateral conductive or mixed hearing l oss. Study Design: This is a prospective study of nine patients (five males and four female patients) with conductive or mixed hearing loss who met th e criteria for BAHA except for having normal hearing in the other ear. They had congenital aural atresia or mastoidectomies secondary to chronic ear i nfections with or without cholesteatoma or had a temporal bone tumor excise d Methods: Patients had evaluations before and after implantation, includin g audiological testing and responses to a standardized hearing handicap que stionnaire. Statistical analyses of the data were made using the Wilcoxon s igned rank test and the paired Student t test for repeated measures. Result s: Ah patients had tonal and spondee threshold improvement with BAHA when c ompared with thresholds before treatment. Speech recognition performance in BABA-aided conditions was comparable to the patient's best score in unaide d condition. Patients reported a significant improvement in their hearing h andicap scores with the BAHA. Conclusions: The use of BAHA has significantl y improved the hearing handicap scores in patients with unilateral conducti ve or mixed hearing loss. The proven safety and efficacy of the device prom ote its use in unilateral cases that traditionally had been left unaided.