Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore has successfully performed a Right Cochlear Implantation on a 7-month old infant. In a surgery lasting 3 hours, Dr Sunil Narayan Dutt, ENT Surgeon and Cochlear Implant Specialist and his team at the Apollo Hospitals, successfully implanted the Nucleus Freedom Device into baby Akshara who was suffering from hearing loss as a result of bacterial meningitis.

According to Dr Sunil Narayan Dutt, the paediatric patient was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis at the age of 4 months. CT Scan of the brain had shown bilateral subdural collections, ventricular dilatation with cerebral atrophy. Investigations revealed bilateral profound sensori-neural hearing loss as a result of the disease. Though she was given a hearing aid, there seemed to be no significant improvement, as High Resolution CT Scan of the Temporal Bones and MRI of the Brain and the IAC revealed early signs of labyrinthitis ossificans with cochlear fibrosis, a condition where the turns of the inner ear (cochlea) gradually get closed with scar tissue and new bone formation.

The surgery was a success because Nerve testing at the time of the Neural Response Telemetry ( NRT) showed good responses following complete insertion of the electrodes. An Intraoperative C - arm revealed good positioning and complete insertion. The Cochlear implant was switched on after a month the paediatric patient was able to hear and is soon expected to develop speech and language on par with any other child of her age, for which she is undergoing regular rehabilitation and speech therapy. Neurologically, due to the thinning of some parts of the brain, baby Akshara has a few deficits and is currently undergoing physiotherapy to correct these.