In recent years, cochlear implants have been found to be effective in the treatment of bilateral pro-found hearing loss. Their use has been extended pro-gressively to different populations, including prelingually and postlingually deaf children and adults as well as patients with associated handicaps. Cochlear implants have also been used in patients with anatomic variations of the cochlea and the middle ear, such as cochlear ossification, congenital malformations of the ear, and previous middle ear surgery.

In this article, we describe a surgical technique involving cochlear implantation in patients who previ-ously had undergone radical surgery of the middle ear without preservation of the posterior bony canal wall. The problem of implantation in radical cavities merits examination for two primary reasons. First, it is not uncommon for chronic otitis media of ears treated with surgery to result in sensorineural hearing loss (inci-dence: 1.2% to 4.5%) or anacusis (incidence: 0.5%). 1 Second, the prognosis of cochlear implantation with regard to auditory results is excellent in patients who become progressively deafened postlingually. 2