About the Authors

Maciej Wilk

Contributed equally to this work with: Maciej Wilk, Roland Hessler

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, Clinic for Exotic Pets, Reptiles, Pet and Feral Birds, University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation, Hannover, Germany

Roland Hessler

Contributed equally to this work with: Maciej Wilk, Roland Hessler

Affiliation MED-EL GmbH, Innsbruck, Austria

Kenneth Mugridge

Affiliation MED-EL GmbH, Innsbruck, Austria

Claude Jolly

Affiliation MED-EL GmbH, Innsbruck, Austria

Michael Fehr

Affiliation Clinic for Exotic Pets, Reptiles, Pet and Feral Birds, University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation, Hannover, Germany

Thomas Lenarz

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Verena Scheper

scheper.verena@mh-hannover.de

Affiliations Department of Otolaryngology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Competing Interests

The data and results presented within this manuscript are in total obtained with MEDEL as a research partner having no financial interest on the outcome of the study. No products exactly comparable to the one used in this study will be released to the market. RH, KM, and CJ are employed by MEDEL Corporation. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: CJ VS RH. Performed the experiments: MW RH VS. Analyzed the data: MW KM TL VS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MF VS TL. Wrote the paper: MW RH KM CJ MF TL VS.