Background
A persistent minority of cochlear implant users fail to get the anticipated hearing benefit despite a normally working device. The reason for these ‘soft’ failures is poorly understood. We propose that the analysis of routinely collected clinical health data could further our understanding of implant failures. Importantly this approach may identify pre-existing prognostic biomarkers and on-going processes such as middle ear inflammation which affect the outcome and longevity of cochlear implants.
Impact of ENT UK Foundation funding
Funding from the ENT UK Foundation has contributed to the development of a standing patient and public, involvement and engagement group (PPIE) at the University of Southampton Auditory Implant Service. The PPIE group has recruited members who have undergone training and is now meeting regularly. The group are vital for our work using clinical health data to investigate cochlear implant outcomes and the impact of immune function. The PPIE group will contribute by defining outcomes that are important to cochlear implant users, inform study design and engage with issues around the data privacy, security and the implications of secondary data analysis.
Current Status
The work funded by the ENT UK Foundation Grant is ongoing and follow-on funding has now been granted by University Hospital Southampton to develop a local research database of all routinely collected clinical data at the University of Southampton Auditory Implant centre.
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