Abstract Background The purpose of this study was to develop an effective method of reducing metal artifacts in cochlear implant (CI) electrodes. Methods The temporal bones of 30 patients (34 ears) after CI were examined with 320-detector row computed tomography, which was evaluated by two senior radiologists using a double-blind method. Noise, artifact index, signal-to-noise ratio, and the subjective image quality score were compared before versus after using single-energy metal artifact reduction (SEMAR). The electrode position, single electrode visibility, and electrode count were evaluated using SEMAR combined with either multi-planar reconstruction (MPR) or maximum intensity projection. Results The two radiologists’ measurements had good consistency. SEMAR significantly reduced the image noise and artifacts index and significantly improved the signal-to-noise ratio and subjective image quality score (P