Late hearing recovery of postmeningitic deafness in a child after cochlear implantation

SummaryA 3-year, 9-month-old boy who contracted bilateral total deafness following bacterial meningitis underwent cochlear implant of the right ear 6 months after the onset of deafness. He became a successful cochlear implant user, while hearing in the non-implanted left ear began to improve 15 months after surgery. His hearing fluctuated in the early phase of recovery, but finally became stable at 60 dB pure tone average 18 months later. At the age of 7 years, he started to use a conventional hearing aid in the left ear and a cochlear implant in the right ear. Now at 11 years old, he takes advantages of the bimodal hearing in speech recognition and sound localization. The present case suggests that close consultation with the parents is essential in deciding on the use of a cochlear implant, in this case explaining the possibility of cochlear ossification and language development delay on one side and the rare incidence of spontaneous recovery on the other side, since we have no means of predicting the outcome of postmeningitic deafness.