Stable Longitudinal Performance of Adult Cochlear Implant Users for More Than 10 Years

Objective: To analyze the long-term performance of cochlear implant patients. Study Design: Retrospective longitudinal study. Setting: Tertiary referral center with a large cochlear implant program. Main Outcome Measure: Speech perception scores in quiet and in background noise in the short-term (1.12 +/- 0.15 yr) and long-term (12.61 +/- 2.34 yr) after implantation. Patients: Fifty-eight implanted ears from 55 patients with a mean age of 51.80 +/- 1.757 years at the time of implantation were included. Results: Speech perception scores were stable in the long-term for up to 20 years postimplantation. When alteration of speech perception over time was investigated in relation to the age at implantation, there was a deterioration of the scores in quiet in older patients (>60 years old at the time of surgery). In addition the speech comprehension in noise was negatively correlated with the age at the time of the test. Conclusion: The speech perception abilities of cochlear implant users are stable in the long-term and at the most may be affected by the age of the patients, as it is known from acoustic hearing.