[Analysis of the mechanical-acoustic features of the middle ear after stapedial surgery both with and without stapes muscle preservation].

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE Stapes replacement surgery performed in cases of otosclerosis alters various anatomical (ossicular, ligament, and tendon) elements of the middle ear affecting their physical properties. The goal of our work is to determine which of the surgical techniques applied during otosclerosis most respects the mechanical-acoustic features of the middle ear. PATIENTS AND METHOD We analyzed the audiological and admittance results of 100 patients who underwent various stapedial replacement techniques and compared them to 20 otologically healthy subjects. RESULTS The audiological results obtained are similar in the different surgical techniques compared. However, those techniques in which the stapedial muscle tendon is preserved offer similar hearing resonance frequencies post intervention as healthy ears, which was not found to be the case in the remaining techniques evaluated. CONCLUSIONS We feel that the stapedial tendon should be preserved during otosclerosis surgery as the mechanical-acoustic features of the ear are thus better conserved, leading to enhanced language recognition in noisy environments.