Cochlear Implant Fold Detection in Intra-operative CT Using Weakly Supervised Multi-task Deep Learning

Abstract

In cochlear implant (CI) procedures, an electrode array is surgically inserted into the cochlea. The electrodes are used to stimulate the auditory nerve and restore hearing sensation for the recipient. If the array folds inside the cochlea during the insertion procedure, it can lead to trauma, damage to the residual hearing, and poor hearing restoration. Intraoperative detection of such a case can allow a surgeon to perform reimplantation. However, this intraoperative detection requires experience and electrophysiological tests sometimes fail to detect an array folding. Due to the low incidence of array folding, we generated a dataset of CT images with folded synthetic electrode arrays with realistic metal artifact. The dataset was used to train a multitask custom 3D-UNet model for array fold detection. We tested the trained model on real post-operative CTs (7 with folded arrays and 200 without). Our model could correctly classify all the fold-over cases while misclassifying only 3 non fold-over cases. Therefore, the model is a promising option for array fold detection.