MED-EL Launches Tici Unico, the First Fully Invisible Cochlear Implant

The Austrian firm MED-EL says its Tici Unico is the first and only commercially available cochlear implant implanted entirely beneath the skin — microphone included. Five Austrians have worn one in a Vienna clinical study and about 40 people use it worldwide; the first two commercial implantations outside the trial took place on Tuesday. The only external part is the charger, and because the device is invisible patients must tell clinicians before an MRI.

Key Takeaways

The Austrian firm MED-EL says its Tici Unico is the first and only commercially available cochlear implant implanted entirely beneath the skin — microphone included.
Five Austrians have worn one in a Vienna clinical study and about 40 people use it worldwide; the first two commercial implantations outside the trial took place on Tuesday.
The only external part is the charger, and because the device is invisible patients must tell clinicians before an MRI.

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An Austrian hearing-implant maker has begun selling the first cochlear implant that sits entirely beneath the skin — microphone included — turning a decades-old engineering ambition into a product.

MED-EL of Innsbruck says its Tici Unico is the first and so far only fully invisible cochlear implant available commercially. Unlike conventional devices, which use an external sound processor and transmitter coil worn on the head, the Tici Unico has no external parts except the charger that must be placed against the head to top up the implanted battery.

Cochlear implants help people with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss by converting sound into electrical pulses delivered directly to the auditory nerve, bypassing the damaged inner ear. The conventional external unit is not only a cosmetic issue: it has to be taken off in the rain, in the shower and for sleep. MED-EL says its fully implanted design lets users hear continuously — including while asleep or in the water.

"The Tici Unico is an entirely new category of cochlear implant. For me, a dream I have had since the beginning of our work has come true," said Dr Ingeborg Hochmair, co-founder and CEO of the Innsbruck company. "For the first time, invisible hearing with a cochlear implant becomes possible. For the people who use the Tici Unico, that means an incredible amount." The hardest part of development, according to the company, was the microphone, which has to hear through skin.

Five Austrians have been wearing a Tici Unico for some time as part of a clinical study run by the Medical University of Vienna and the city's General Hospital (AKH). The device is now commercially available, with around 40 wearers worldwide so far. The first two commercial implantations outside the study were performed on Tuesday, at the AKH in Vienna and in St Pölten. MED-EL has not disclosed the price.

Like modern cochlear implants, the device is approved for MRI scans up to 3 tesla; for 7-tesla ultra-high-field scanners it must be removed, as conventional implants do. Because the implant is invisible from the outside, the company stresses that patients must make clinicians aware of it before an MRI examination.