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Date
Contacts
March 13, 2014
George Stamatis
216.844.3667
[email protected]
News Release
Department of Marketing and
Communications
11100 Euclid Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44106
University Hospitals Case Medical Center Surgeons Perform Northeast Ohio’s First
Auditory Brainstem Implant
They hope procedure will help profoundly deaf patient who lost hearing
due to nerve damage
CLEVELAND – Surgeons at University Hospitals Case Medical Center have completed
the first auditory brainstem implant (ABI) operation in Northeast Ohio on a woman who
has lost most of her hearing due to benign tumors on her auditory nerves.
The procedure was performed on March 11 by ear, nose and throat surgeons Cliff
Megerian, MD, and Maroun Semaan, MD, and neurosurgeon Nicholas Bambakidis MD.
It will be about six to eight weeks before it is known if the implant provides benefit to the
patient and to what extent.
The patient has a relatively rare genetic condition known as Neurofibromatosis Type 2
(NF2). The incidence is estimated to be one in 40,000.
Patients with NF2 develop usually benign tumors on the auditory nerves of both ears.
These tumors gradually compress and destroy the auditory nerves and result in bilateral
hearing loss and deafness. The patient noted gradual difficulty in hearing since 2002.
She had surgery and later radiation for her tumors, and was then treated with a cancer
medication and a cochlear implant, but her hearing continued to decline. She has lost all
hearing in her left ear and has partial hearing in her right ear.
“She is now struggling a great deal to maintain the pace she was used to in her daily life,”
said Dr. Megerian, who is Chairman and Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology
Head and Neck Surgery at UH Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve
University School of Medicine. “An ABI is the only current available means to provide
auditory rehabilitation to these patients.”
An ABI is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a
person who is profoundly deaf. It uses a similar technology as the cochlear implant, but
instead of electrical stimulation being used to stimulate the cochlea, it is used to stimulate
the brain stem of the recipient.
The ABI device includes a tiny radio receiver implanted underneath the skin and twentyone 1-millimeter platinum electrodes implanted in the part of the hearing mechanism
known as the cochlear nucleus.
Sounds, amplified and clarified by a special coil and miniature computer that slips onto
the ear like a conventional hearing aid, are collected by the receiver, converted to
electrical pulses and transmitted to the electrodes. From there the signals travel through
the skin by radio frequency and connect to the brain stem at the same place the auditory
nerve would normally connect.
There is great variability in terms of what and how much they can hear.
“While the effectiveness of ABI is limited, for someone who has lost most of her hearing,
even having a partial return of sound is extremely helpful,” said Dr. Semaan, Associate
Director, Otology, Neurotology, and Balance Disorders at UH and Assistant Professor at
Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
“The role of the Audiology and Intraoperative Neurosurgical Monitoring team is to
confirm the presence of an auditory response once the ABI is placed. However, only
when the ABI is fully activated 6 to 8 weeks after surgery will we be able to appreciate
precisely how the patient is able to hear with the implant. An intensive auditory
rehabilitation process will then begin to help the patient learn how to make use of the new
sound,” said Gail Murray, Ph.D., Director of Audiology and Cochlear Implants at UH
and Associate Professor at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.
Dr. Bambakidis, Director, Cerebrovascular and Skull Base Surgery at UH and Associate
Professor at the CWRU School of Medicine, said, “This type of amazing technology is
available only at institutions that have the expertise present to work together in a team
approach for the treatment of complex skull-base pathology. To work properly, the ABI
must be positioned perfectly on the surface of the brain stem, and requires the close
collaboration of the ENT, Audiology and Neurosurgery teams. In our case we are
fortunate in that we have had years of experience working together. Many institutions
market themselves as having this sort of expertise available, but the Neurological
Institute at UH truly can back up those claims with results from procedures such as this
one.”
While the ABI procedure was first done in California in the 1970s, this is only the first
one in Northeast Ohio. The bulk of these surgeries performed nationally have been at the
House Ear Clinic, located in Los Angeles, and which consulted on this case.
###
Video interviews of the ENT surgeons who performed the procedure and b-roll of
procedure are available on the UH Newsroom site.
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About University Hospitals
University Hospitals, the second largest employer in Northeast Ohio, serves the needs of patients through
an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians in 16 counties. At the
core of our health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center, one of only 18 hospitals in the
country to have been named to U.S. News & World Report’s most exclusive rankings list: the Best
Hospitals 2013-14 Honor Roll. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of
Medicine, UH Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of
excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopaedics and
spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular
surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated
UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation; UH
MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of
the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at Case Western Reserve University. UH Case
Medical Center is the 2012 recipient of the American Hospital Association – McKesson Quest for Quality
Prize for its leadership and innovation in quality improvement and safety. For more information, go to
www.uhhospitals.org