Clinical and Social Outcomes of Cochlear Implantation in Older Prelinguals

Background and Objectives@#Cochlear implantation in late implanted prelinguals necessitates a complex decision-making process for clinicians and patients due to the uncertainty of achieving adequate benefit in auditory and speech perception. This study longitudinally evaluated clinical and social outcomes of prelingually deaf children with implantation in their late childhood. @*Subjects and Methods@#A total of 113 (49 females and 64 males) participants, with an age range of 5-15 years, were assessed for the pre-implant parameters such as hearing loss etiology, aided responses, anatomical aspects, and psychological evaluation. The Category of Auditory Performance, Speech Awareness Threshold, Speech Reception Threshold, and Speech Discrimination Score were administered to assess the patient’s auditory skills. Further, the Speech Intelligibility Rating scale was administered to evaluate the patient’s speech intelligibility at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months post-surgery. Subjectively perceived benefits were evaluated using the satisfaction rating scale and a questionnaire. @*Results@#The statistical results showed a significant impact of cochlear implantation in all domains. Positive impact and improvement post-implantation were noted in all the spheres, including auditory, linguistic, social, and educational. @*Conclusions@#The study highlighted that the outcomes of a cochlear implant at a later age might not parallel with the implantation at a younger age. However, this still provides measurable benefits even after a longer period of auditory deprivation.

Isolated metastatic papillary thyroid carcinoma masquerading as parapharyngeal space paraganglioma

Isolated metastatic deposits of papillary thyroid carcinoma to the parapharyngeal space are rare. Herein, we describe the case of a young woman who presented with a right-sided oropharyngeal mass that was initially diagnosed as a parapharyngeal space paraganglioma. The patient opted for conservative treatment as she was asymptomatic and wished to avoid the risk of neurovascular morbidity associated with surgery. After 20 years, the patient sought treatment again for the oropharyngeal mass, which had progressively increased in size and was causing difficulty in swallowing. Repeat imaging of the affected area revealed that the mass had increased significantly in size; it also revealed the presence of a previously absent small lesion in the right lobe of the thyroid. Excision of the parapharyngeal space tumour and near-total thyroidectomy were performed; the excised specimens showed features of the follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma. As papillary thyroid carcinoma that metastasises to the parapharyngeal space can masquerade as a paraganglioma, clinicians should bear in mind that an isolated metastatic deposit in the parapharyngeal space could be the first sign of occult papillary thyroid carcinoma.