SUMMARY
Aniket A. Saoji, Ph.D., is a clinical audiologist and the director of the cochlear implant program at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
One of Dr. Saoji's research goals involves reducing the number of clinical visits needed for postoperative cochlear implant rehabilitation and increasing and improving the use of telemedicine in remote programming and troubleshooting cochlear implants. He is also interested in developing new tools and technologies that can improve cochlear implant outcomes.
Dr. Saoji is involved in the development of a new technique that can monitor inner ear trauma during cochlear implant surgery. Use of this technique is likely to guide electrode placement and improve residual acoustic hearing preservation in cochlear implants.
Focus areas
- Residual hearing preservation. Dr. Saoji is developing and evaluating intraoperative and postoperative applications of electrocochleography in cochlear implants. This technique will improve clinicians' ability to monitor residual hearing and electrode placement during cochlear implant surgery.
- Acclaim cochlear implant. The Mayo Clinic cochlear implant team is working with Envoy Medical to develop and test the Acclaim fully implantable cochlear implant. Pending approval from regulatory agencies, the first clinical trial of the fully implantable cochlear implant system will be conducted by the cochlear implant team at Mayo Clinic.
- Same-day activation. The cochlear implant team at Mayo Clinic has developed a same-day activation program in which cochlear implant devices are activated immediately after cochlear implant surgeries. This program is known to save travel time and reduce the cost and number of clinical visits needed for cochlear implant rehabilitation. Dr. Saoji is interested in studying the benefits of early device activation on electrode impedances, battery life and cochlea implant outcomes.
Significance to patient care
Dr. Saoji's research is focused on simplifying cochlear implantation and postoperative rehabilitation, which should result in significant cost savings for patients and ultimately encourage more eligible patients to receive cochlear implants.
He works with different cochlear implant manufacturers in the development of new technologies that have been shown to significantly improve cochlear implant outcome.
The fully implantable system that he is developing and evaluating will provide 24/7 access to sound for patients with cochlear implants without the need to replace batteries every day.