East Coast first: Man gets under-skin cochlear implant at MUSC Health

MUSC Health has become the only place on the East Coast to test a totally under-the-skin cochlear implant in a patient. Teddy McRackan, M.D., and his team at the MUSC Health Cochlear Implant Program placed the device on the left side of Jack Weiner’s head to see if his hearing improves over the next year.

Weiner, a 72-year-old real estate lawyer, was thrilled to be chosen for the clinical trial testing the Envoy Acclaim Cochlear Implant. Traditional cochlear implants use a component on the outside of the head, visible to others, along with an implanted internal device. The Acclaim device is completely under the skin and doesn’t require additional externally worn parts. Read more about how it works here.

Weiner described his reasons for wanting to be part of the trial. “I've had hearing loss for about 15 years, and it was getting progressively worse. I started to do some research into what the possible solutions were.I had a couple of doctors recommend cochlear implants. It may be vanity, or it may be the stigma attached with wearing something on the side of your head, but I Googled ‘fully implanted cochlear device.’ That was about two years ago.”

 

That search led him to information about the Acclaim implants. “I read about what Envoy was doing. It not only was invisible, the technology of using the natural components of the ear as the microphone seemed like a major advantage,” he said.

“I sent them an email and said, ‘When you're ready, I'd like to try this.’ And over the years, we corresponded back and forth, and they put me on the list.”

The list was of candidates for the clinical trial that Weiner is now part of. It’s relatively small, with seven sites, including MUSC Health, that will enroll a total of about 56 patients. So becoming one of those patients was a big deal for Weiner. 

Getting the experimental implant comes at a time of change for the 72-year-old grandfather. “I recently moved in with my daughter, who has three young children, and I'm helping her with the kids. My life went from 150 rounds of golf a year to 150 diapers a year,” he joked.

“Communicating with the 3-, 7- and 10-year-olds –   I'm still, even with hearing aids, not hearing them well.”

He hopes the implant will change that. There are multiple causes of hearing loss, including aging, medical conditions, noise, toxins, medications and genetics. Weiner’s cause is unknown.

“No one who's ever examined me can tell me what caused it. I was never exposed to any job situation where I had loud noises, but I did listen to my share of very loud music when I was younger, and I suspect that that was a contributing factor.”

Whatever the cause, the result is clear. “I have profound hearing loss in one ear. My other ear has severe loss, which is not great. So I can hear with the hearing aid pretty well out of one ear, not so much out of the other ear.”

Doctors are giving Weiner a month to heal from surgery before activating his hearing to see if it improves his understanding over the coming months. The trial will track any problems related to the device and compare how well he recognized words before getting the implant and after wearing it for some time.

 

There’s already some data on the device. A feasibility study tested the implant on three adults. It worked for all three, but the surgery was more complex than for traditional cochlear implants. The same was true for the process of programming the devices. But McRackan said MUSC Health has one of the bigger cochlear implant programs in the country, and that complexity is not a problem for his team or the other study sites.

Weiner, who lives in New Jersey, traveled to South Carolina to meet that team and get the experimental cochlear implant. It was one of the closer options to his home. This is his first experience with MUSC Health. 

“I'm optimistic because I believe in the quality of the medical care, based on my experience so far with Doctors McRackan and Elizabeth [Camposeo]. They're just top-notch. It just seems like a really good institution. They know what they're doing.” Elizabeth Camposeo, AuD, is an MUSC Health audiologist involved with the study.

Weiner is also prepared to wait and see when it comes to the implant. “My expectation is not that you flip a switch and it's going to be great. My expectation is that the way this thing works is it's going to be using parts of my ear, my cochlea and the nerve going to my brain and parts of my brain that haven't been used for a long time – and aren't used to being used. I think it's going to take a while for my body to adjust to it.”