Essay On Bilateral Atresia

Aural Atresia is not very common but is a subject that is undergoing intense study. Atresia is a congenital disease that is found in one in 10,000 births. Out of all born with Atresia, one-third has it bilaterally. People with Atresia normally have a conductive hearing loss and a deformed pinna. If the conductive hearing loss is not dealt with early on in a child’s life it often causes speech delays. Along with speech delays, a child with a malformed pinna is harder to be socially accepted. Patients with unilateral Atresia are told to hold off on any reconstruction until they get to an adult age. However, children with bilateral Atresia undergo reconstruction surgery around preschool age to make certain that they will have normal speech …show more content…
Andrea Jovankovicˇova´, Roman Stanı´k, Samuel Kunzo, Lucia Maja´kova´, and Milan Profant all believe that implanting hearing aids in children with bilateral Atresia will help better their hearing threshold. In the Children’s University Pediatric ENT department, 94 patients were treated that had congenital aural Atresia (Andrea Jovankovicˇova´, Roman Stanı´k, Samuel Kunzo, Lucia Maja´kova´, and Milan Profant, page 2). These patients were split up into three groups depending on their treatment. Results from the pure tone audiometry test and their CT of their temporal bones helped evaluate each patient. Their evaluations showed how much their threshold improved either after conventional surgery or implanted hearing devices. Results in this experiment were insufficient because there were so many differently treated people it is hard to tell which one treatment will help everyone. Out of all thirty-four patients tested, twenty-four of them showed a hearing improvement with the implanted hearing device. The BAHA implant is a middle ear implant that 96% of patients with them had no complications after they were implanted. The BAHA implant has brought a number of reconstruction surgeries down and last longer for