Comparison of rehabilitation results in deaf patients with and without genetically related hearing loss.

The introduction of prognostic tools to evaluate rehabilitation progress in cochlear implant patients (CI patients) is of great importance. The authors attempted to verify whether the identified 35delG mutation in the GJB2 gene can serve as a valuable indicator for rehabilitation progress of CI patients. A group of 51 subjects was studied. Molecular analysis was based on the identification of 35delG in GJB2. Logopedic assessment was performed with a non-verbal test of seven sounds, evaluating detection, discrimination and identification of the sounds during the first, third and sixth months after implantation. Results indicated that patients with GJB2-related deafness (DFNB1)s achieve better results in rehabilitation, but only at the early stages of rehabilitation. Prolonged rehabilitation equalised differences, which, subsequently, excluded this marker as an indicator for rehabilitation evaluation. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.