ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The treatment with a cochlear implant (CI) is the gold standard in therapy of patients with profound hearing loss or deafness. Successful hearing rehabilitation with a CI is a complex, multi-stage process. In medicine, "Clinical Practice Guidelines" (CPG) are widely accepted for the standardization of such processes. These are supplemented by medical registries in which data regarding the treatment can be collected and evaluated. The aim of this paper is to identify currently existing CI-related CPGs and registries in Europe. METHODS: Between 01/2021 and 06/2021, 42 countries on the European continent, including the United Kingdom, Russia and Turkey, were screened using an internet search (search engine: Google) and a key word search in the Pubmed database. Search terms were the respective country name combined with the following terms: "Cochlear Implant", "CI", "Cochlear implant clinical practice guideline", "CI Guideline", "Cochlear Implant Registry", "CI Registry", "Ear nose throat society". The internet search was conducted in English as well as in the corresponding national language. The objective was to identify a CI-related CPG or registry. RESULTS: A CPG was found in 16 of 42 (38%) countries. In terms of population, this accounts for 645 million out of 838 million people (77%). A registry existed in 4 of the 42 (10%) countries assessed. This corresponds to 102 million out of 838 million (12%) people. In total, 4 out of 42 countries (10%) had both a CPG and a registry. CONCLUSION: Our work shows numerous efforts in Europe to standardize CI care at the national level. While most people in Europe already live in countries with a CPG, this is not the case for CI registries. European-wide consensus on CPGs or registries does not yet exist. The present study thus provides a first assessment of the distribution of CI-related CPGs and registries.
Subject(s)
Cochlear Implantation , Cochlear Implants , Deafness , Deafness/surgery , Europe/epidemiology , Humans , Quality Control , RegistriesABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to profound limitations in patient care and student teaching at the University Hospitals of Otorhinolaryngology (ORL). In contrast, the impact on research has been variable. To classify the pandemic-related effect on research, the development of the number of scientific publications of the German ORL university hospitals before and during the pandemic was analyzed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The publication performance between 2015 and 2020 of the 39 current chairmen was surveyed using a literature search (Pubmed). All entries relating to the chairmen of the university hospital as first, last or co-author were included. The absolute and relative development of each author's publication performance was determined and evaluated using nonparametric statistical methods. RESULTS: A total of 2420 publications could be documented. From 2015 to 2019, an average of 368 publications were published per year. In 2020, this number increased by 57.9â% to 581 publications. While the number of monthly publications remained constant between 2015 and 2019, a significant increase was seen from May 2020 up to a maximum of 74 publications in September 2020. In 2020, 34 articles (5.9â%) had a thematic relation to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, with 7 of these papers (20.6â%) resulting from cross-site publications. CONCLUSION: In 2020, the number of scientific publications was raised to more than 1.5 times the usual annual publications. This increase was clearly related in time to the reduction of elective patient care during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic starting in mid-March 2020. Probably, free time capacities enabled this increased publication output. Our results confirm the great scientific potential of the ORL university hospitals, which has been successfully implemented despite the pandemic.
