Cochlear implantation has been a standard therapy for treating severe deafness because patients who receive it have better speech perception. However, the hearing performance of cochlear implantation in noisy environment is far from satisfaction. Efforts have been made to reverse such condition, such as EAS, bimodal stimulation, environment-adaptive speech enhancement and multipolar stimulation, and patients who receive it get more or less better speech perception in noisy environment than traditional cochlear implantation.
Cochlear Implants ; Equipment Design ; Humans ; Noise ; Speech Perception

Objective To investigate the characteristic of the cisplatin-induced damage of hair cells in cochlear organotypic cultures. Methods Three to four-day-old (P3～4) C57 mice were used for this study. The cochlear basilar membrane was cultured for 6~8 hours and then treated with different doses of cisplatin(0?mol/L, 10?mol/L, 50?mol/L, 100?mol/L, 400?mol/L, 1000?mol/L,7 cochlears for 0-100?mol/L group, 6 cochlears for the rest dosage, control group used the dose of 0?mol/L)for 48 hours.TRITC-phalloidin and DAPI were used for stain. The entire cochlear hair cells were observed and counted under Nicon fluorescent microscope. Data was analyzed by LS for hair cells loss graph and SAS 8.0 for linear regression analysis. Results Hair cells loss had rarely been seen in the control group of cochlear tissue under the culture condition. How ever, in cisplatin treated groups, the hair cells loss increased from 14.5% to 78.4% with the concentration of cisplatin increased in the range of 10?mol/L-100?mol/L, while decreased from 48.8% down to 8.77% with the dose getting further higher to 400?mol/L and 1000?mol/L. Apoptosis was confirmed by the DAPI stain in the hair cells loss area. The hair cell loss shows no difference from the apex to the basal turn of the basilar membrane. Conclusion Cisplatin-induced hair cell death shows characteristic damage that it is dose-dependent in a certain range of dosage, and it decreases when the cisplatin dose higher than the one caus maximal damage under the condition of cochlear organotypic cutures. Apoptosis happens evenly in inner and outer hair cells in all turns of basilar membrane.

Objective To investigate the effects of the intellegent CO2 laser assisted Fisch stapedotomy with artificial stape prostheses in the treatment of otosclerosis.Methods A total of 28 patients with otosclerosis who had undergone the intellegent CO2 laser assisted Fisch stapedotomy with artificial stape prostheses were retrospectively e-valuated.The intellegent CO2 lasersare was used to vaporize stapedius tendon,posterior crus of stapes,and most importantly perforate stapes footplate.Bone and air conduction thresholds were determined at 0 .5 ,1 ,2 ,and 4 kHz preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively in all patients.Results No sustained vertigo or sensorineural hearing loss occurred postoperatively.There were no statistically significant differences between preoperative and postopera-tive average bone conduction thresholds.Preoperative and postoperative air bone gap were 30.38(23.13,39.38)dB HL,9.75(8.25,10)dB respectively and the postoperative results were significantly different from the preopera-tive.Conclusion The intellegent CO2 laser can be used safely in stapes footplate surgery and is well suited for trea-ting otosclerosis.