The addition of a contralateral routing of signals microphone to a unilateral cochlear implant system - A prospective study in speech outcomes

Abstract

Objectives/Hypothesis: The purpose of the study was to investigate the potential clinical advantages of incorporating a contralateral routing of signals (CROS) microphone in unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users. Study Design: A prospective study was undertaken on a group of 21 postlingually deafened adults who were all implanted with the same multichannel CI system. Methods: Performance with a unilateral CI was compared with performance using both a unilateral implant and a CROS microphone system worn on the opposite site (CI-CROS). Speech understanding using the AzBio sentence was evaluated in quiet, with speech presented at 0° and 270° azimuth in the horizontal plane. Speech understanding in noise was performed with speech at 0°, and noise at 0°, 90°, and 270°. Results: A significant gain in speech understanding using CI-CROS compared to the unilateral CI alone was found in quiet when speech was presented at 270° (average improvement of 8.8%, P