SPECIAL ARTICLE   

Otorinolaringologia 2020 June;70(2):29-33

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-6621.20.02298-5

Copyright © 2020 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Otogenic neurological complications: are more frequent in cochlear implants recipients?

Alessandro MARTINI, Roberto BOVO ✉

Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

Cochlear implantation (CI) remains a safe technique with minor and major complications rates generally reported to be around 10% and 1% respectively. Nevertheless, meningitis in children with CI has still an incidence of around 0.002%, i.e. 16 to 30 times higher than the general population. Aim of this paper is to describe the different etiologic factors potentially involved in postimplantation bacterial meningitis. Recent research has demonstrated that risk can be greatly reduced by age-appropriate vaccinations for all cochlear implant recipients, proper array introduction to avoid malposition or further damage of a malformed cochlea and tailored surgical technique in selected cases.

KEY WORDS: Cochlear implants; Meningitis; Complications