Single-sided deafness (SSD) and asymmetric hearing loss (AHL) have recently been proposed as a new indication for cochlear implantation.

There is still no recommended treatment for these hearing deficits, and most options considered rely on the transfer of sound from the poor ear to the better ear, using Contralateral Routing of the Signal (CROS) hearing aids or bone conduction (BC) devices.

In contrast, cochlear implantation allows the poor ear to be stimulated and binaural hearing abilities to be partially restored.

Indeed, most recently published studies have reported an improvement in the spatial localisation of an incoming sound and better speech recognition in noisy environments after cochlear implantation in SSD/AHL subjects.