Mississippi's first Sentio surgeries give teens 360 degrees of hearing

Published on Monday, December 16, 2024

By: Annie Oeth, [email protected]

Landon Forbes and Lily Reed are now hearing in stereo thanks to surgery and care at Children's of Mississippi.

Lily, a high school senior from Pascagoula, and Landon, an Ocean Springs sixth-grader, are among the first pediatric patients in Mississippi to use the Sentio system, an active transcutaneous bone conduction hearing system that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 2024.

The Sentio system, the smallest transcutaneous system available, includes an implant that's surgically placed under the skin and an external sound processor that attaches by magnet.

Both Children's of Mississippi patients have conductive hearing loss in which sound cannot reach the inner ear, said Dr. Jeffrey Carron, professor of otolaryngology and pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, who performed their surgeries.

"In Landon's case, it's because of chronic ear disease that destroyed the ossicles, the small bones of hearing," Carron said. "Lily was born without an outer ear and has no ear canal on one side."

Approved for ages 12 and older, the Sentio system from Oticon Medical includes an external sound processor and an implant surgically placed under the skin. The system works by vibrating the skull bone to move the fluids of the inner ear so the cochlea can detect sounds, Carron said.

"Sentio is the newest bone conduction implant and has the thinnest profile of all of them and also requires less drilling," he said.

Landon tested this out during his activation and later while listening to his phone through his Sentio device, which has Bluetooth integration.

"What can you hear?" his mother, Brigitte Beaugez-Forbes, asked when the device was first activated.

"Everything," he said, "and I'm hearing out of both ears."

Dr. Beth King, assistant professor of otolaryngology, showed Landon how to operate the sound processor, link it to his phone and store it when not in use, such as when he's sleeping, showering, swimming or, because of loud shotgun blasts, deer hunting.

When Dr. Ashley Grillis, associate professor of otolaryngology, played a series of beeps for Lily to hear, she broke into a smile, answering "yes" to whether she could hear them. She was also picking up the white noise of the exam room's heating and cooling system.

"This will make playing the piano interesting," she said. Lily, a violinist growing up, plays the piano by ear, said her father, Glen Reed of Pass Christian.

Sentio differs from a cochlear implant, which is used when the cochlea, or inner ear, does not function well. A cochlear implant involves drilling an opening into the cochlea to insert the electrodes.

Carron said the device "should work seamlessly with the opposite ear to give the benefits of bilateral hearing such as sound localization, better hearing when background noise is present, and squelch, or fine-tuning the sound source direction."

For Landon, Sentio's changes were immediate and personal. "I can hear myself talk," he said after his activation, "and I like it."

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