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Robot-Assisted Cochlear Implantation

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Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Robotic surgery in the last few decades has become more and more popular in all surgical specialties and during the last few years has also created interest in otology with the objective of improving the surgical accuracy by overcoming the surgeon’ hand limitations such as tremor, drift, and accurate force control feedback. Cochlear implantation may take advantage from robotic assistance in all the steps of the surgery: the approach to the middle ear through a tunnel from the postauricular skin to the inner ear (i.e., direct cochlea access); the minimally invasive cochleostomy by robot-assisted drilling tool; the alignment of the correct insertion axis on the cochlear basal turn, and the insertion of the electrode array via an automated insertion tool. The development of bone-attached parallel robots and image-guided surgical robot system allowed in the last few years the successful first cochlear implantation procedures in patients via a single hole drilled tunnel. Other robotic systems allowed successful implantation with reduced trauma cochleostomy and slow speed accurate insertion in the scala tympani.

Despite these promising results and the increasing number of procedures, the use of robotics in cochlear implantation does not represent yet the standard care. Further laboratory research and clinical studies are necessary to prove the superiority of robotic procedures with respect to standard procedure with the aim of making the intracochlear implant insertion an atraumatic and reversible gesture for a total preservation of the inner ear structure anatomy and physiology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Inserm/Institut Pasteur, Institut de l’Audition, Technologie et thérapie génique de la surdité, Paris, France

    Daniele De Seta, Yann Nguyen, Renato Torres, Isabelle Mosnier & Olivier Sterkers

  2. Unit of Otolaryngology, San Giovanni-Addolorata Hospital, Rome, Italy

    Daniele De Seta

  3. GHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, DMU ChIR, Service ORL, GRC Robotique et Innovation Chirurgicale, AP-HP/Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

    Yann Nguyen, Isabelle Mosnier & Olivier Sterkers

  4. Facultad de Medicina, Departamento de Ciencias Fisiologicas, Universidad Nacional de San Agustin de Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru

    Renato Torres

  5. GHU Pitié-Salpêtrière, Unité Fonctionnelles Implants cochléaires, AP-HP/Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

    Isabelle Mosnier

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  1. Daniele De Seta
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  2. Yann Nguyen
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  4. Isabelle Mosnier
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  1. Otorhinolaryngologist, Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Sandra DeSaSouza

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De Seta, D., Nguyen, Y., Torres, R., Mosnier, I., Sterkers, O. (2022). Robot-Assisted Cochlear Implantation. In: DeSaSouza, S. (eds) Cochlear Implants. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0452-3_17

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