Due to increasing claims on high precision surgery, robotic assistance is becoming an emerging and highly demanded technology. Especially in surgical procedures in regions with complex anatomy mechatronical devices could help prevent iatrogen damaging of risk structures. In Otolaryngology particular cochlear implantation is a procedure characterized by a high degree of complexity and required a...

Conventional optical tracking systems have accuracy on the scale of several hundred micrometers. This is insufficient for an optical coherence tomography (OCT) guided laser cochleostomy which requires a much higher accuracy. In this paper, we evaluate the use of OCT itself as a tracking device by locating artificial landmarks generated around the cochleostomy. The results of the first experimen...

UNLABELLED For the last 6 years, cochlear implantation has become a standard practice in our department. The number of patients rose from 5 to 21/ year. Using multiple types of cochlear implants and indicating the surgery also to malformed inner ears led to the encounter of some complications. OBJECTIVE to present the surgical complications from our department. MATERIAL all the patients adm...

Cochlear gene therapy can be a new avenue for the treatment of severe hearing loss by inducing regeneration or phenotypic rescue. One necessary step to establish this therapy is the development of a safe and feasible inoculation surgery, ideally without drilling the bony cochlear wall. The round window membrane (RWM) is accessible in the middle-ear space, but viral vectors placed on this membra...

HYPOTHESIS Histopathologic study of the tissue seal and biologic response around cochlear implant electrodes in patients who had received a cochlear implant during life could provide clues concerning the pathogenesis of meningitis after cochlear implantation. BACKGROUND Bacterial meningitis has been reported as an infrequent complication of cochlear implantation using a variety of electrode d...

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to establish the frequency of postoperative bony dehiscence overlying the mastoid portion of the facial nerve after round window membranous cochleostomy using high-resolution computer tomography, and to ascertain whether this was associated with a higher incidence of facial nerve injury compared with other studies. We also evaluated the usefulness of the St Thomas’ classific...

OBJECTIVE To demonstrate and compare polycationic-mediated cochlear gene transfer with linear polyethylenimine (PEI) via cochleostomy and osmotic pump infusion method. DESIGN A dissociated cochlear culture was used to select the optimum nitrogen to phosphate ratio of PEI/DNA complexes to be used in vivo. The PEI-enhanced green fluorescent protein reporter gene DNA complex was introduced with ...

Optical coherence tomography as a guide for cochlear implant surgery? To assess the potential use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) in cochlear implant surgery, OCT was applied in human temporal bones before cochleostomy. The question was whether OCT might provide information about the cochlear topography, especially about the site of the scala tympani. OCT was carried out on human temporal...