Adaptation of the Standardized Hearing Outcomes Scattergram to Hearing Preservation in Cochlear Implantation

Objective: Encourage adaptation of a standardized format for reporting hearing preservation outcomes in cochlear implantation (CI). Study Design: Retrospective chart review. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: One hundred seventy-eight postlingually deafened adults with bilateral SNHL and a preoperative low-frequency pure-tone average (LFPTA) 80 dB HL or better at 125, 250, and 500 Hz in the ear to be implanted. Interventions: Subjects underwent unilateral CI from 2013 to 2019 at a large referral center. Pre- versus postoperative LPFTA was used to generate a scattergram. Main Outcomes Measures: Pre- versus postoperative activation LPFTA, percentage of patients fit with electric and acoustic stimulation, scattergram plot. Results: Average postoperative LFPTA was 68.6 dB HL (range 18-68) compared with 48.7 dB (range 5-80), preoperatively. At activation, the average LFPTA shift at CI activation was 20.5 dB HL (range 0-60) and 83.5% (n = 137) patients had hearing preserved, of whom 41.6% were fit with electric and acoustic stimulation throughout the study period. The scattergram successfully illustrates the distribution and number of patients with their respective audiometric outcomes. Conclusions: The scattergram developed for reporting hearing outcomes in clinical trials is highly adaptable to reporting hearing preservation results in cochlear implant surgery. It represents a transparent and accessible option for reporting outcomes that can be used as a consistent format to allow for interstudy comparison and future meta-analysis.