Anesthetic management in pediatric cochlear implant

Abstract

Hearing loss can be conductive or sensorineural in nature. Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) affects the spiraling organ cochlea of the inner ear, which transforms the sound vibration into a neural signal or transmits it to the auditory part of the brain. Mild-to-severe SNHL, although can be rehabilitated successfully using hearing aids in extreme SNHL, hearing aids merely make the sound louder, distorted, and amplified where the clarity may be not enough for proper understanding to develop speech. Hence, in such cases, the best option for hearing and learning proper speech is a Cochlear implant (CI). Patients with irreversible hearing loss and deaf-mutism, a cochlear implant is an acceptable therapeutic option undertaken under general anesthesia and the hallmark of a successful anesthetic procedure is to provide a bloodless field during surgery.