Kolkata, Mar 20: CK Birla Hospitals – CMRI, Kolkata, became the first hospital in eastern India to perform a cochlear implant surgery using the Nucleus Nexa System, the world’s first and only smart cochlear implant. The procedure was performed on an adult patient by Dr N V K Mohan, Sr Otologist, ENT and Cochlear Implant Surgeon at CK Birla Hospitals – CMRI, Kolkata.
Cochlear implants are surgically placed devices that restore hearing in patients for whom hearing aid no longer provides adequate benefit. For decades, the technology has followed a broadly similar architecture of an external processor paired with an implanted receiver. The Nucleus Nexa System changes that architecture in a way that gives the implant capabilities that no cochlear implant has carried before.
The device stores each patient’s personalised hearing maps within an internal memory that is both incorruptible and inexhaustible. If the external sound processor develops a problem, the patient’s hearing configuration remains intact within the implant itself, eliminating the downtime that has historically been an unavoidable consequence of processor failure. The system also monitors its own functioning daily, sending diagnostic alerts to the patient or family if any issue arises.
Beyond this, the implant actively reads the surrounding environment, drawing less power in a quiet room and more in a noisy one, which extends battery life through a full day of normal activity. Most consequentially, the Nexos chipset can receive firmware updates. As hearing technology advances, this patient will be able to access those developments without undergoing further surgery.
Dr N V K Mohan, Sr Otologist, ENT and Cochlear Implant Surgeon at CK Birla Hospitals – CMRI, Kolkata, said, “This implant changes what we are able to offer our patients in a fundamental way. The firmware update capability means the technology the patient receives today does not become a ceiling — it becomes a starting point. The internal diagnostics address one of the most common anxieties families carry after cochlear implant surgery, which is not knowing whether the device is working as it should. And the smart power management means patients are not managing battery constraints alongside everything else in their day. To be the first team in eastern India to offer this is something we take seriously.”
The milestone carries particular weight in the Indian context as hearing loss is among the most common disabilities recorded in the country. Community-based studies have reported prevalence between 6 and 26.9 percent across age groups and disabling hearing loss which is defined as bilateral moderate loss or worse, affecting between 4.5 and 18.3 percent of those studied. Rural populations and the elderly carry a disproportionate share of that burden, with prevalence among those above 60 years reaching as high as 50 percent in some studies. Eastern India, with its significant rural population and historically limited access to advanced tertiary care, has had few opportunities to access cochlear implant technology of this generation.
For over 56 years, CK Birla Hospitals – CMRI, Kolkata has been the hospital that patients across Eastern India and neighbouring countries have turned to when the stakes are highest. Providing cutting edge treatment has been the hallmark of the hospital. With Team ENT comprising Dr N V K Mohan, Dr Chirajit Dutta, Dr Arjun Dasgupta, Dr Anupama Satpathy and Dr Prasit Biswas, joining CMRI in 2020 the dedication to patient care has been strengthened even more. The decision to bring the Nucleus Nexa System to this region is consistent with that record: an institution that has built its reputation not on proximity alone, but on the quality of care it chooses to make available. For patients in Eastern India who need cochlear implant surgery, that choice now includes the most advanced implant technology in the world. As the only corporate hospital to have SmartNav technology to monitor and ensure smooth and accurate placement of the implant, CMRI has the pole position in the delivery of future ready solutions to hearing loss.
