Complicated cochlear surgery performed in Omani hospital

Muscat: A team of doctors from Oman’s leading Al Nahda Hospital performed a complicated cochlear implant operation for a one-and-a-half-year-old girl who lost her hearing due to meningitis, reports a leading Arabic news portal of Oman. The disease exposed the young patient to calcification in the cochlear spiral of both ears.

The operation, which took about four hours, is a rare and difficult operation in the field of cochlear implantation. Dr Ammar bin Mohsen Al Lawati, ENT specialist at the cochlear implant surgery at Al Nahda Hospital confirmed that the operation is not the first of its kind carried out by the hospital’s medical team.

The team had previously performed more than 470 such operations, including 19 for children who got the condition due to Meningitis.

Urgent cases

Meningitis sometimes causes hearing loss in children, which requires cochlear implant treatment at the earliest, to save the child from developing calcification in the cochlear system.

Dr Lawati pointed out that such cases are usually urgent, and treatment must be expedited, not only for the safety and life of children, but also to preserve their sense of hearing. He explained that the current case is the third in the Sultanate where an operation is performed due to spiral calcification which is considered a difficult procedure.

Dr Lawati added that first step of the treatment process was to ensure the child is treated from meningitis that was threatening her life. The second step involved restoration of hearing with this cochlear implant surgery. The child’s health condition is currently stable after the surgery.