Specialists at the Mikołaj Kopernik Hospital’s Clinical Department of Otolaryngology performed the procedure on Wednesday. The boy was discharged on the third day after surgery.
Instead of implanting one ear and operating on the other later, the doctors implanted both devices during a single operation. The hospital said staged implantation had previously been the standard approach in Poland.
Dr Dmitry Tretiakov, deputy head of the department, said simultaneous bilateral implantation is now the international standard for treating young children with congenital deafness in both ears.
The implant has an internal component inserted into the cochlea in the inner ear and an external component. The external part is activated one month after surgery and picks up sounds from the surrounding environment, transmitting them to the internal component.
The boy’s congenital deafness was detected through newborn screening in his first days of life. Experts stressed that screening is essential because infants cannot independently signal that they have hearing problems.
Professor Andrzej Skorek, head of the department, said approximately one to two children per 1,000 births in Pomerania, as across Poland, are born with hearing problems.
Around 50 children born in Gdańsk each year have or are expected to develop hearing problems, according to Skorek.
Skorek said helping these children requires specialist examinations and the work of therapeutic teams.
(sp)
Source: PAP