Bone Conduction Device Surgery - Highlighting the Percutaneous BCD
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2025-05-31
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Open Access Atlas of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Operative Surgery
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
Bone Conduction Devices (BCDs) utilise bone conducted sound to assist people with conductive hearing loss, mixed hearing loss and single sided deafness (SSD) who cannot use traditional hearing aids or prefer BCDs to conventional hearing aids. This chapter focuses on the percutaneous BCD (percBCD). There are today several types of BCDs. The major difference between BCDs is whether the skin is penetrated (percutaneous BCDs) or if the skin is intact (transcutaneous BCDs). The most recent BCDs on the market are active transcutaneous BCDs where the skin is intact, the transducer has direct contact with the skull bone and where the sound processor is attached to the skin surface with low magnetic force. The 1st BCD using direct contact with the skull bone to transmit sound to the cochlea was a titanium fixture with a sound processsor attached to it. This innovative way to transmit sound was based on osseointegration, which is the unique bond between titanium and living bone discovered by the Swedish professor of anatomy, Per-Ingvar Brånemark who implanted titanium dental fixtures in the jaw. He then proceeded in collaboration with Professor Anders Tjell-ström, a Swedish otolaryngologist, and an engineer Professor Bo Håkansson to develop a bone conduction hearing aid where a sound processor was attached to an osseointegrated titanium implant in the skull bone behind the ear.
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Hultcrantz, M. 2025. Bone Conduction Device Surgery - Highlighting the Percutaneous BCD. In Open Access Atlas of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Operative Surgery. J. Fagan, Ed.Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. 18. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43550 .