Digital X-ray stereophotogrammetry for cochlear implantation

Multielectrode, intracochlear implant systems are effective treatment for profound sensorineural hearing loss. In some cases, these systems do not perform well, which may be partially due to variations in implant location within the cochlea. Determination of each electrode´s position in a patient´s inner ear provides an in vivo basis for both the cochlear modeling of electrical fields and the future design of electrode arrays that deliver electrical stimulation to surviving auditory neurons, and may improve speech processor programming for better speech recognition. The authors developed an X-ray stereophotogrammetric approach to localize implanted electrodes in three dimensions. Stereophotogrammetry of implanted electrodes is formulated in weak perspective geometry, with knowledge of a three-dimensional (3-D) reference structure and electrode positions in each of two digital stereo-images. The localization error is theoretically, numerically, and experimentally quantified. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the technique.