This systematic review investigates the effects of auditory brainstem implants on clinical and auditory outcomes for individuals with and without tumors (i.e., neurofibromatosis type 2 or sporadic vestibular schwannomas).
Overall, ABI devices provided auditory benefits for individuals with and without tumors. While both groups of ABI recipients showed a similar number of active electrodes across studies, the following between-group differences emerged: <br />
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<li><span style="color: #333333;">Individuals without a tumor demonstrated greater improvements in overall auditory outcomes including improved recognition of closed-set words (79.8% versus 39.2%) and recognition of open-set sentences (53.0% versus 21.5%) compared to those with a tumor. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333;">While individuals without a tumor showed greater weighted mean categories of auditory performance (CAP) scores (3.1 versus 2.3) overall, 33.33% of individuals with tumors achieved scores greater than 5 compared to 8.69% of individuals without tumors. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #333333;">Individuals with tumors showed higher rates of side effects post-ABI (e.g., motor symptoms, headaches, ear pain) when compared to those without tumors (80% versus 36%). </span></li>
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<span style="color: #333333;">Limitations of this review include the heterogeneity of auditory tests, the inclusion of retrospective cohort studies, and the lack of cohort comparisons that prevented meta-analysis.</span>
