Hearing Preservation After Penetrating Cochlear Injury

Objectives:

To share results and recommendations for management of penetrating cochlear injury.

Methods:

A patient underwent repair of a penetrating cochlear injury after a projectile led to a traumatic cochleostomy with a narrow miss of the facial nerve and intracranial carotid artery.

Results:

Postoperatively, the patient's audiogram demonstrated a pure tone average of 47.5 dB for air conduction and 35 dB for bone conduction, worse in the high frequencies, with a Word Recognition Score of 76%.

Conclusions:

Hearing loss from a penetrating cochlear injury can be mitigated with early repair, minimizing inner ear trauma, and steroid use to treat posttraumatic labyrinthitis.

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