The success of Baha
David Proops, ENT surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Medical Centre Birmingham and Birmingham Children’s Hospital, tells World of Sound why Baha is so successful and gives his view on the future of the procedure
The reason why Baha is so successful and will be used more and more in the future is that it is a relatively simple procedure where there is no risk to the patient or their existing hearing.
It is a very simple day case procedure, which is not operating anywhere near the ear and should be carried out under local anaesthetic. If you follow the audiological guidelines and try to ‘read what it says on the box’ and what is appropriate for a patient, then you will have a very high success rate, because the outcome is predictable.
Baha bypasses the problem
Procedures for conventional hearing problems are actually not at all conventional, and have to rely on why someone became hearing impaired in the first place as well as the skill of the surgeon, who is trying to replicate what creation did. We’re not always very good at this. Baha bypasses the middle ear and therefore also bypasses the problem and if you choose correctly and a patient’s ears are properly understood, you can expect something like a 98 per cent success rate. No other ear operation has this level of success.
The wearability factor
Patient satisfaction scores very high with both adults and children. They like it because the Baha is attached to them, unlike an air conduction aid in the ear – when there is an occlusion, for example like a finger in the ear, or when you are talking or chewing, you can feel the device. For this reason some people don’t like hearing aids. The Baha can be worn from waking up to going to sleep and some children even wear them in bed. No other processor has this wearability.
What about the future?
As for the future, there will be new developments with the Baha processors as they catch up with other hearing technology and no doubt they will get smaller at the same time. There may be a chance of the system becoming fully implanted, although this could lose some of the Baha’s flexibility. For children born with congenital ears, Baha is the only solution, conventional surgery is not an option and this situation will not change.
There are several current issues surrounding awareness of Baha, such as the primary care sector knowing virtually nothing about the procedure and certainly nothing about indications. There is obviously work to be done in terms of GP education. In terms of audiology departments, many around the country, where there isn’t a Baha programme won’t know about Baha. If an ENT consultant is a generalist, they probably won’t be aware either and the problem here can be worse as often the older patients, who are most likely to benefit from the procedure, are seen by young doctors who are unlikely to have experience of the indications.
There are a huge number of people out there who would benefit from a Baha and the task to reach them is massive. It’s partly up to the manufacturers to market directly to the people, but as it is likely that other hearing aid companies will move into this space, a bit of healthly competition will do no harm. As competitors chase the market share, the resulting raised awareness of Baha can only be of benefit to everyone.
