Middle Tennessee Ear, Nose & Throat (MTENT) will be the first private medical practice in Tennessee to offer the SoundBite™ Hearing System, an innovative approach to treating patients with single-sided deafness (SSD), a loss of hearing in one ear. SoundBite is the world’s first removable and non-surgical hearing solution to use the well-established principle of bone conduction to imperceptibly transmit sound via the teeth to the inner ear. It is designed to help people regain their spatial hearing ability and rejoin the conversation of life.

On August 23rd, MTENT will hold an educational seminar and demonstration of this new technology at StoneCrest Medical Center at 10 a.m. Patients can register for the free event by calling Daniela Kam at 615-624-5400.

MTENT’s Jeffrey A. Paffrath, M.D. explains that sound waves travel through either air or bone to arrive at our inner ears. 

“SoundBite takes advantage of a person’s natural teeth structures as the bone conductor to transfer sound vibrations to the cochlea of the inner ear where they are perceived as clear, high quality sound,” Paffrath said. “In this way, the sensation of quality, directional hearing is restored to the impaired ear. Many familiar sounds are heard through bone conduction, such as chattering your teeth, crunching on potato chips, or scratching your scalp.”

In the United States, an estimated 50,000 people per year experience unilateral hearing loss, typically caused by viral infections, Meniere’s disease, head or ear trauma, or through surgical intervention to remove acoustic neuromas or other brain tumor removal procedures. About 160,000 people worldwide per year acquire SSD.

A significant improvement over existing technology, SoundBite treatment process takes only a few weeks -- from start to finish. This represents a new, elegant option to offer our patients who suffer from this debilitating condition. The treatment will be offered for the first time at a private practice in Tennessee at Middle Tennessee Ear, Nose & Throat.

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