3. Results
28 patients (16 males, 12 females) underwent cochlear implantation. Their mean age was 4.5 years (range: 1.5 – 9.4). There were no technical difficulties that forced the surgeon to switch to the microscope. This means both planned surgical steps were performed solely with VITOM® 3D. Initially, the tripods were at the surgeon’s side, but this arrangement restricted the surgeon’s hand movements slightly; therefore, the tripods were moved to the other side after the second surgery. Mean time was 7.4 min (range: 6.0 – 9.0 min) for equipment preparation prior to the surgery. Mean time was 9.9 min (range: 4.6 – 24.0) for posterior tympanotomy and 3.0 min (range: 1.0 – 19.0) for electrode insertion. The time outliers in 2 cases were due to anatomical abnormalities. No patients experienced intra- or post-operative complications. In all cases, responses of the auditory nerve were obtained after the first insertion of the electrode.
Individual scores are presented in chronological order in Table 1. The frequency distributions of the scores are presented in Table 2. All parameters of the VITOM® 3D system use were rated between “neutral” and “very good”. Staff comfort was rated “very good” in 82.1%. Surgeon comfort was rated “very good” in 75% of cases. Lighting and focusing during posterior tympanotomy was better than during electrode insertion. Overall, the scores improved throughout the surgeries.