ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Otolaryngology
Clinical Portrait of Cochlear Implantation in Patients With Incomplete Partition Type-III Malformation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shanghai 6th Peoples Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Children's Hospital, Shanghai, China
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Abstract Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and postoperative speech development in children with incomplete partition type III (IPIII) cochlear malformation. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 6 patients (12 ears) diagnosed with IPIII cochlear malformation ,all patients underwent preoperative high-resolution CT (HRCT), middle ear and cranial MRI, and audiological evaluations. intraoperative cochlear imaging was performed to confirm electrode placement, there was also 1 types of comparison: IP III patients with matched CI patients without inner ear malformations, questionnaires were used to evaluate auditory and speech perception Results: All 6 patients were male, with 3 undergoing bilateral cochlear implantation and 3 undergoing unilateral implantation (1 left, 2 right). the surgical age ranged from 8 months to 12 years, with a median age of 17 months. HRCT findings in all 12 ears (100%) showed a grossly normal cochlear shape with bony cochlear partitions present but an absent modiolus. ten ears (10/12; 83.3%) exhibited enlarged internal auditory canals(6.13±0.395mm), 9 ears (9/12; 75%) had profound sensorineural hearing loss, 4 ears (4/12; 33.3%) showed significant vestibular dilation with a cystic appearance, and 4 ears (4/12; 33.3%) had enlarged vestibular aqueducts. all patients had normal auditory nerve development (100%). intraoperative neural response telemetry (NRT) responses were successfully elicited in all cases, and all patients experienced gusher phenomenon (6/6; 100%). intraoperative cochlear imaging preliminarily confirmed electrode placement. follow-up ranged from 3 months to 1 year, with preoperative CAP scores 0.83±0.41and postoperative CAP scores 6±1.55,p<0.05. in Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) questionnaires, CI patients without inner ear malformations outperformed IP III patients, while there was no significant difference in other questionnaires. Conclusion: IPIII cochlear malformation is more common in male patients and is often associated with profound to severe sensorineural hearing loss. cochlear Implantation for IP-III malformation leads to significant auditory-speech improvement in early stage and can result in varying degrees of oral competence
Keywords: Incomplete Partition Type III (IP-III), Inner ear malformation, Cochlear Implantation, Intraoperative imaging, Enlarged Internal Auditory Canal
Received: 09 Aug 2025; Accepted: 28 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 zhu, ni, chen and li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: xiao yan li
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