FRIDAY, April 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Most adults meeting pure tone audiometric thresholds for cochlear implantation are not referred for assessment, according to a study published online April 4 in PLOS Medicine.
Chloe Swords, from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined factors influencing referral for implant assessment among patients with severe-to-profound hearing loss in a multicenter, multidisciplinary observational study. Data were submitted from 36 urban hospitals across England, Scotland, and Wales.
The researchers found that 311 of the 6,482 submitted patients meeting pure tone audiometric thresholds for cochlear implantation already had a cochlear implant. Overall, 35.7 percent of the remaining 6,171 patients were eligible for an implant, but only 9.7 percent were referred for assessment. Adults were less likely to be referred if they lived in a more deprived area decile within indices of multiple deprivation, lived in London, were male, or were older, after adjustment for site- and patient-specific factors. The likelihood of being informed of their potential eligibility was lower for those who lived in more deprived areas, those who lived in the North of England or London, those of Asian or Black backgrounds versus Whites, men, and older adults.
"Clinicians and policymakers may wish to explicitly target these underrepresented patient groups via support and education to those teams directly caring for them to improve discussion and referral rates for cochlear implants," the authors write.
Two authors disclosed ties to Advanced Bionics, Cochlear, and MEDEL.
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