Stapedotomy technique in otosclerosis surgery: a comparative longitudinal study of 220 cases examining also the impact of piston lengths (0.4 mm vs 0.6 mm) on hearing deficiency

Objectives:The aim of the study is to investigate the long term effects of stapedotomy on hearing threshold differences in patients with otosclerosis, and also the effects of the pistons with the diameter of 0.4 mm and 0.6 mm on hearing.Methods:In this study, 220 patients that had stapedotomy between 1996 and 2000 are retrospectively evaluated.Results:148 out of 220 patients (67.2%) had their air-bone gap between 0-10 dB, 64 patients (29%) between 10-20 dB, and 8 patients (3.6%) above 20 dB. There wasn’t any statistically significant difference in speech discrimination scores in pre- and postoperative period. Furthermore, there was no statistical difference in the outcome of the pistons’ diameters used in stapedetomy. Basing the findings of the average postoperative air bone gap, a low 3.6% failure rate suggests that the stapedotomy is the preferred method in the otoscleroris surgery.Conclusion:The results of this study suggest that stapedotomy technique yields successful results in otosclerosis findings independent of the radius of the used piston.