The 8.5mm abutment in children: the Birmingham bone-anchored hearing aid program experience

Abstract

Objective: To the best of our knowledge, the use of the 8.5-mm abutment and its long-term outcome in the pediatric population has not been reported in the medical literature. We describe our experience with the use of the 8.5-mm abutment in a series of 16 children who have required a long abutment.

Study design: Retrospective case series review.

Setting: Tertiary hospital.

Patients: Patients younger than 16 years who had an 8.5-mm bone-anchored hearing aid abutment fitted.

Intervention: Use of an 8.5-mm bone-anchored hearing aid abutment.

Main outcome measures: Indications and complications with using the 8.5-mm abutment.

Results: We have used the longer abutment on both 3- and 4-mm fixtures. We have found the need to use it particularly around the time of puberty when we observed soft tissue problems develop. Follow-up after insertion of the long abutment ranged from 6 months to 6 years. There was 1 fixture extrusion 2 years after a long abutment had been fitted.

Conclusion: Overall, we have found the long abutment to be useful in a selected pediatric population.