Comparison of an Electromagnetic Middle Ear Implant and Hearing Aid Word Recognition Performance to Word Recognition Performance Obtained Under Earphones.

Objective: To report the results of patients with the Maxum middle ear implant (MEI) and compare word recognition scores (WRS) and speech perception gap (SP Gap) of Maxum versus optimally fit hearing aids (HA). Study Design: Case series with chart review. Setting: Single, private otology clinic. Patients: Eleven ears, in nine adult patients (two women; average age 62.7 yr). Interventions: Twelve consecutive ears with moderate to severe (SNHL) underwent implantation of the Maxum system. One patient was not included due to inadequate preoperative testing. Main Outcome Measures: Primary outcome measures included word recognition score (WRS) and SP Gap (maximum word understanding [PB max] - WRSaided) improvement compared with HAs. Results: The average Maxum WRS was 64.7% (range, 28-94%), a 41.6% improvement (range, 10-66%) over HAs (p

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