Middle Ear Implant

Kyu Rin Hwang; Jae Young Choi

doi:10.7599/hmr.2015.35.2.103

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Hwang and Choi: Middle Ear Implant

Review Article

Hanyang Medical Reviews 2015; 35(2): 103-107.

Published online: 21 May 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7599/hmr.2015.35.2.103

Middle Ear Implant

Kyu Rin Hwang, Jae Young Choi

Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Correspondence to: Jae Young Choi. Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-752, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2228-3603, Fax: +82-2-393-0580, jychoi@yuhs.ac

Received 24 February 2015 Revised 11 March 2015 Accepted 20 March 2015

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Patients with hearing loss have been increasing according to the extension of lifespan. Recently, new technology which solves the limitation of conventional hearing aids has been developed. For example, the active middle ear implantation which can directly transfer the vibration energy to the ossicles and inner ear fluid can avoid the feedback and occlusion effect, because this device uses the electromagnetic transducer, not a microphone. Active middle ear implants give more clear sounds and more gain in high frequency area. This device can apply to the patients with ski-sloping hearing loss and severe mixed hearing loss. In the paper, we reviewed the benefits and ideal candidates of the middle ear implant.

Keywords: Hearing, Implant, Ear, Middle, Rehabilitation

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Classification of implantable hearing aids.

Fig. 2

Vibrant sound bridge and Floating Mass Transducer (FMT). (Courtesy of Med-El Korea Corp.)

Fig. 3

The sound transfer mechanism of soundbridge.

Fig. 4

Indication of soundbridge in SNHL (Lt) and mixed hearing loss (Rt).

Fig. 5

Incus vibrobplasty and stapes vibroplasty.

Fig. 6

Surgical results of incus vibroplasty and round window vibroplasty.

Fig. 7

The mechanism of sound transfer with Carina.

Fig. 8

The mechanism of sound transfer with encoy and its indication.

References

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