Cochlear implant, Ménière’s no more
Reviewed by Hassan Mohammed

Implanting Ménière’s disease (MD) patients with cochlear implant (CI) may improve their speech recognition, tinnitus and quality of life with comparable hearing benefits to those seen in controls without MD, even if labyrinthectomy has also been performed. Authors investigated the effect of cochlear implant alone on the vestibular symptoms in MD patients. The study included 39 patients with a definite or probable MD. Half of them had moderate or severe vestibular symptoms preoperatively. After having the CI, almost one third of patients improved, no change in two thirds and some deterioration in three patients. It was noted that patients with mild or absent symptoms are more likely to have stable symptoms postoperatively. Auditory outcomes are worse in patients with moderate and severe vestibular symptoms. The authors accepted that the number of included patients was small. However, they highlighted the importance of the study outcomes when MD patients are counselled for their CI operations. They pointed out that combining labyrinthectomy with CI is more effective in controlling vestibular symptoms in MD patients. While this study is less applicable in the UK, it is still helpful in counselling patients with bilateral MD undergoing CI. It is also difficult not to remember the Swedish Sham study.

Vestibular Symptoms After Cochlear Implantation in Patients With Meniere Disease.
Arambula A, Cabrera C, Richter J, Mowry S.
OTOL NEUROTOL
2025;5(3):e074.