Author: @Tianya Love Science
On October 21, a middle school student in Yanshan County, Anhui Province, accidentally dropped a cochlear implant device into the toilet while going to the toilet. According to the owner, the cochlear implant device is worth 300,000 yuan, which is an astronomical number for an ordinary family. The family members who seemed to be at a loss had to ask for help from the outside world, and when the fire rescue brigade of Yanshan County received the alarm call at about 16:00, it was almost dark. But time is money, and the longer it drags on, the slimmer the hope of finding a cochlear implant. Rescuers immediately rushed out and worked overnight.
The firefighters braved the stench, shoveled out the debris in the septic tank with a shovel, washed it with water, and rummaged it carefully, but it was busy for more than two hours, and the entire septic tank was turned upside down, and there was still no trace of the cochlear implant.
At this time, it was completely dark, and the high-intensity homework in the harsh environment made the rescuers tired, but this was the hope of a family, but also the future of a middle school student, and no matter what, the family could not be disappointed. Rescuers analyzed the idea and thought that the septic tank was old, the debris was entangled, and the cochlear implant was likely to be blocked in the pipe. So I lit the lights, found a rock drill, pried the concrete open little by little along the pipe, and turned out all the things inside to clean and check it a little bit.
After another hour of hard work, a pleasant cheer came, and the treasure was finally found at the bend of the pipe.
Cochlear implants are acoustic-electrical conversion electronic devices that convert acoustic signals from the environment into electrical signals and pass them into the patient's cochlea, stimulating the residual auditory nerves in the affected ear and causing the patient to produce a certain degree of hearing. Cochlear implants is a high-tech electronic device, in the case of severe hearing loss or even total deafness, cochlear implants are the only hope and choice for deaf patients, and now the world has adopted cochlear implants as a conventional method of treating severe deafness to total deafness. The scientific community has a high evaluation of the cochlear implant, believing that it is a real artificial organ in human history, and it is currently the only artificial organ that can replace human organs.
Ordinary people may not be able to figure it out, just this little thing to 300,000? Comparable to a medium luxury car, why is cochlear implant so expensive?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="13" > first of all, the high cost of research and development</h1>
As an artificial organ, the cochlear implant needs to go through animal experiments, clinical trials (divided into people and children), and finally issued a marketing license by the relevant state departments, a process that takes several years. The cycle of artificial organs from research and development to application is so long, involving a series of high-end fields, and because the audience is small, from a cost point of view, no company can afford such a long and huge investment alone. Therefore, most of them are from the national level, organizing a series of teams to develop, produce, and apply, which dooms the investment in the field of artificial organs to be incomparable to other conventional medical investments, or not at all on the same order of magnitude. At the same time, from a commercial point of view, cochlear implants are a commodity, and they must face the upgrading and replacement of technologies and products, which require continuous investment in research and development. It is estimated that each generation of cochlear implant products from research and development to clinical trials to application, a cycle of at least 200 million to 300 million, the length of 3 to 5 years.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > followed by high manufacturing costs</h1>
As an artificial organ, all parts from the material to the production process have extremely high requirements, most of the raw materials need the world's top suppliers to have the ability to provide, for the in vitro machine, the requirements of power saving, durability, waterproof and so on. This places high demands on all accessories and manufacturing processes such as batteries, connecting wires, in vitro enclosures, etc. The implant in the body is also extremely demanding for sealing, safety and biocompatibility, whether it is an in vitro machine or an implant, it involves a large number of patents and technology monopolies, so the production and manufacturing costs of cochlear implants are very high.
Take the wires needed to be used as an example, do not think that as simple as those headphone cables seen daily, the wire of the cochlear implant needs to transmit a large amount of information, but also have good shielding and wear resistance. Because of the small audience, the demand is not large, so including such a famous factory as Foxconn are not willing to produce, only a few manufacturers are willing to do, the scale does not go, the cost naturally can not be reduced, so a humble cochlear wire asking price is at least 2000 yuan.
In addition, the market sales cost and circulation cost of cochlear implants are not low, and money is needed in all circulation links. All of these costs add up to a high price for cochlear implants. In the past, imported cochlear implants generally cost 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, not including the cost of implant surgery. Some people go abroad to do implant surgery in order to pursue foreign quality, and the cost is 50,000 to 60,000 yuan.
Thankfully, cochlear implants developed by Chinese came first. Wang Zhengmin, professor of the Affiliated Eye, Ear, Throat and Nose Hospital of Fudan University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, led his team to spend 18 years and finally developed China's first "multi-channel program-controlled cochlear implant" with independent intellectual property rights and independent innovative technology in 2003, breaking the monopoly of "foreign cochlear implant" dominating the world. The clinical effect and various data indicators of Wang Zhengmin's products have reached the international advanced level, so that China has stepped into the ranks of the few countries in the world that can develop and produce cochlear implants, and the current Chinese cochlear products have evolved to two generations and three generations. Due to the large number of Chinese population, the number of deaf and mute people is the largest in the world, which allows domestic cochlear implants to be able to achieve scale in production to reduce costs and reduce prices, at present, domestic cochlear implants can generally be bought for 70,000 to 80,000 yuan, and some of the original foreign products with 200,000 or 300,000 foreign products are also forced to drop to about 150,000 yuan. This is a great boon for deaf and mute people all over the world.
Wang Zhengmin
Cochlear implants are so expensive, is it worth it?
First, on a personal level.
Behind every deaf and mute person, there are many tear-jerking stories. Countless patients with cochlear implants, when the machine is turned on, they suddenly enter the colorful world of sound from the silent world. At that moment, the expression on their faces was either surprised, or scared, or excited, and they closed their eyes and used their organs other than their eyes to feel the world around them for the first time in their lives, allowing excited tears to flow down their cheeks. Seeing the patient's expression of mixed feelings and mixed sorrow and joy, everyone around him was moved. Dr. Sig, an internationally renowned audiologist, once said that cochlear implants are a medical technology that can make people cry. For patients, this is not only to solve the problem of "deafness", but also to solve the problem of "dumb", because "speaking" is based on "listening", and the ability to communicate with the outside world can be enough to change their life's fate. In this sense, the value of spending this money is immeasurable.
The first time I heard a different expression of the voice
Second, from the perspective of society from the national level.
Among the five categories of disabled people, deaf people belong to the group with the most difficulty in communication, and in order to ensure the normal life of deaf and dumb people, from family to society, they must make great efforts. From top to bottom, the state has established a series of education and employment security systems for the deaf and mute, and the central government alone invests billions of yuan in this regard every year. By the end of 2019, there were a total of 296 schools for the deaf nationwide, and the investment in subsidies for school buildings, teachers, and students was a huge amount of money. According to statistics, among the 20 million newborns in China every year, about 30,000 are people with unsound hearing, and the total number of deaf and mute people in the country is now about 27 million, which is still very large.
Guilin School for the Deaf and Dumb
If cochlear implants are implanted from the beginning of the child, so that these people are on the path of normal growth from the beginning, it is a very worthwhile investment at the national level alone. Now, all over the world for newborn implants in the national support policy, the number of deaf and dumb people is gradually decreasing, Europe and the United States and other developed countries are gradually reducing the number of deaf schools, according to reports, the current German deaf schools have been almost completely closed. In China, at present, financial subsidy policies are adopted for children aged 0 to 7 who meet the conditions for cochlear implantation, for example, Guangzhou stipulates that cochlear implant medical insurance can pay up to 76,000 yuan (2018 policy).
The first time I heard the expression of the voice
It should be pointed out that the development of human language centers is generally formed by about 3 to 5 years old, and if the cochlear implant is implanted before this, deaf and mute people will gain good language skills. After this period, even if the cochlear implant is implanted, the deaf and mute can only hear sounds but cannot form their own language. Therefore, the earlier the cochlear implant, the better, it is generally believed that newborns are at 12 months or less than the optimal age for cochlear implantation, readers and friends if there is such a need around them, be sure to remind them to undergo implant surgery as soon as possible.
The first boot test, the baby laughed, the mother cried
It should be noted that this classmate lost only an in vitro machine, and the value is far less exaggerated than 300,000. Previously, many rumors said that the loss of the in vitro machine was very serious, and even the craniotomy was re-implanted. In fact, this is a wrong statement, the in vitro machine can be reconfigured, even if the import is only tens of thousands of yuan, of course, for ordinary families, this is indeed a huge expense. In addition, the cochlear implant does not need to be opened, but only cuts an opening behind the ear and implants the device subcutaneously, which is not a very complicated operation.