Assessment of patient satisfaction with various configurations of digital CROS and BiCROS hearing aids.

We conducted a study of 91 patients with severe-to-profound asymmetric hearing loss to assess their satisfaction with digital contralateral routing of signal (CROS) or bilateral contralateral routing of signal (BiCROS) hearing aids, Satisfaction was evaluated on the basis of the number of patients who elected to purchase their hearing aid following a free 30-day trial and on the results of a subsequent 8-question survey. We found that overall patient satisfaction was generally high. At the end of the 30-day trial, 66 of the 91 patients (72.5%) elected to keep their CROS or BiCROS device, a percentage that is far greater than the acceptance rates of 10 to 20% that had been previously reported with older models of the CROS and BiCROS devices. According to the survey responses, those who kept their devices gave them an overall rating of 3.4 on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied); those who returned their devices gave them an overall rating of 1.9.

National registry for juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis.

BACKGROUND: Juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis (JORRP) is an infrequent but debilitating disease. Because JORRP is uncommon, it has proven difficult for studies at single institutions to accurately evaluate its natural history. OBJECTIVE: To characterize the clinical spectrum of JORRP. DESIGN: Standardized retrospective and prospective medical record abstraction. SETTING: Twenty-two tertiary-care pediatric otolaryngology centers throughout the United States. Patients All patients with JORRP younger than 18 years seen between January 1, 1996, and March 31, 2002. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Demographics, age at diagnosis, anatomic sites of disease, longitudinal disease course, frequency of surgery, need for tracheotomy, and medication history. RESULTS: The registry includes 603 children. The mean age at diagnosis was 4.0 years. The children underwent a mean of 5.1 surgeries annually. Current age, rather than age at diagnosis, was the primary determinant of surgical frequency. The larynx was involved at the time of diagnosis in 96.1% of children, and 87.4% had only 1 anatomic site involved. Children with 1 site involved were significantly older at diagnosis (mean age, 3.9 years) than those with 2 sites (mean age, 2.9 years). Most (74.2%) had stable disease over time, 5.8% showed progression of papillomas to new sites, and 17.9% had no evidence of disease for at least 1 year. Children with disease progression were diagnosed at a significantly younger age than those who remained stable or became disease-free. Children who required tracheotomy were significantly more likely to have progressive disease. CONCLUSIONS: The registry has established the clinical course of JORRP in a large sample representative of the United States. Young age was the most important determinant of disease severity (frequency of surgery, extent of disease at diagnosis, and progression of disease). Addressing questions of pathogenesis and disease course will require a revised data collection instrument and molecular analysis of tissues.