2013 Volume 136 Pages 45-48
We investigated 166 patients who underwent cochlear implantations in our department in the period from March 1993 to April 2012. Forty-nine patients (29.5%) were children and 117 patients (70.5%) were adults. The most frequent causative diseases were progressive sensorineural hearing loss, congenital hearing loss, sudden deafness, postoperative hearing loss and meningitis. Twenty of the 166 patients (12.0%) experienced postoperative complications. Complications consisted of skinflap infection in 5 patients (3.0%), electrode extrusion in 4 patients (2.4%), electrode slip-out in 3 patients (1.8%), device failure in 2 patients (1.2%), facial spasm in 1 patient (0.6%) and facial palsy in 1 patient (0.6%). Of those complications, 13 patients (7.8%) received revision surgery. Before implantation, we should inform patients and their family about the risk of complications, and make a real effort to avoid such complications.
