IT ^generally held that the incus has a poor blood supply although it would appear that, in health, it is adequate. In disease, it has been observed that the long process of the incus is frequently necrosed and, as the result of the clinical examination of a recent case, it is interesting to consider the nutrition of this ossicle. A boy, now aged n , had a bicycle accident at the age of 5, was ...

Piston stapes prostheses are implanted in patients with refractory conductive or mixed hearing loss due to stapes otosclerosis to stimulate the perilymph with varying degrees of success. The overclosure effect described by the majority of researchers affects mainly low and medium frequencies, and a large number of patients report a lack of satisfactory results for frequencies above 2 kHz. The m...

Introduction  Chronic otitis media can cause multiple middle ear pathogeneses. The surgeon should be aware of relation between ossicular chain erosion and other destructions because of the possibility of complications. Objective  This study aimed to investigate the rates of ossicular erosion in cases of patients with and without facial nerve canal destruction, who had undergone mastoidectomy du...

We report the results of anatomical and vibrometric studies of the middle ear of the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. The cartilaginous tympanic disk of Xenopus shows pronounced sexual dimorphism, that of male frogs being much larger than that of females, relative to body size. The stapes footplate, however, is not enlarged in males. The cucullaris muscle was found to insert on the stapes i...

This work assesses the efficiency of the Codacs system actuator (Cochlear Ltd., Sydney Australia) in different inner ear stimulation modalities. Originally the actuator was intended for direct perilymph stimulation after stapedotomy using a piston prosthesis. A possible alternative application is the stimulation of middle ear structures or the round window (RW). Here the perilymph stimulation w...

The operculum and stapes footplate, the two moveable elements within the oval window of the frog, have been thought to function independently. In this study, laser interferometry was used to record the vibrations of both structures in response to free-field airborne sound. Contrary to expectation, the operculum appears to be coupled to the footplate. Coupling is achieved both by means of ligame...

OBJECTIVE To describe and quantify growth patterns of cholesteatomas within the middle ear using a scaled rating system that characterizes patterns of ossicular erosion. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective case review. SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS Patients undergoing first-time surgery for primary and secondary acquired cholesteatomas. INTERVENTIONS Intraoperative assessments of os...

Otoacoustic emissions provide unambiguous evidence that the cochlea supports energy propagation both towards, and away from, the stapes. The standard wave model for energy transport and cochlear mechanical amplification provides for compressional and inertial waves to transport this energy, the compressional wave through the fluids and the inertial wave along the basilar membrane via fluid coup...