Last July, surgeons at UNC Hospitals performed the first auditory brainstem implant procedure in the United States in a patient who did not have inner ear tumors associated with a condition called neurofibromatosis type II (NF2).
After several months of recovery, the patient who received the implant, 65-year-old Watson Hale of Morehead City, N.C., can now hear and understand speech to a limited extent and continues to improve...
