Quality of Life and Audiological Benefits in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users in Romania: Systematic Review and Cohort Study

Profound sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) can be successfully treated with a cochlear implant (CI), and treatment is usually accompanied by increased quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate generic and health-related QoL, as well as the level of audiological outcomes, of CI users, in addition to whether Qol can be restored to the extent of those with normal hearing. Furthermore, different implantation timepoints were compared (early vs. late), and a possible correlation between health and generic QoL questionnaires was investigated. The outcomes from 93 pediatric CI users from Romania were analyzed in the study. Two QoL questionnaires (SSQ12, AQoL-6D), as well as the HSM sentence test and Soundfield measurements, were assessed. The outcomes revealed that the CI users were able to achieve the same QoL as their age- and-gender matched peers with normal hearing, and hearing was restored with good speech comprehension. No significant difference between early- and late-implanted children was detected, although a tendency of a better Word Recognition Score (+10%) in the early-implanted group was discovered. A moderate and significant correlation between the generic and health-related Qol questionnaire was observed. Audiological examinations are still the standard practice by which to measure the benefit of any hearing intervention; nonetheless, generic and health-related QoL should be assessed in order to provide a full picture of a successful and patient-satisfactory cochlear implant procedure

Tongue Base Ectopic Thyroid Tissue—Is It a Rare Encounter?

Failure in the embryological development of the thyroid in adults is rarely seen. We present the case of a 79-year-old female patient who complained of dysphagia and progressive upper respiratory obstruction, which started 12 months prior to her admission. An ENT clinical exam revealed a tongue base, spherical, well-defined tumour covered by normal mucosa. Further assessments established the diagnosis of the tongue base ectopic thyroid tissue. Due to the patient’s symptoms, a transhyoid tongue base tumour removal was performed. The selected patient gave consent for participation and inclusion in this paper, in compliance with the 1964 Helsinki declaration