BACKGROUND The principal objective of ossiculoplasty is to reconstruct the sound-conducting system in the ear to the best possible degree after the elimination of pathological lesions from the middle ear. The ossicular chain is reconstructed with the use of the patient's own properly modelled ossicles and synthetic prostheses. The objective of the study was to assess the degree of hearing impro...

OBJECTIVE To determine factors that predict hearing results using a standard prosthesis system. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective chart review. SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS All patients undergoing ossiculoplasty with the Dornhoffer HAPEX partial and total ossicular replacement prostheses (PORP and TORP) from February 1995 to May 1999 who had documented postoperative follow-up and n...

HYPOTHESIS The osseointegrative capacity of medical-grade bone cement can be used to improve fixation and prevent displacement of an ossicular prosthesis in a guinea pig model. BACKGROUND Successful ossiculoplasty requires a firm connection between the vibrating tympanic membrane and the inner ear. In patients requiring revision ossiculoplasty, half of failures are due to prosthesis displacem...

A person with amputation's subjective perception is the only tool available to describe fit and comfort to a prosthetist. However, few studies have investigated the effect of alignment on this perception. The aim of this article is to determine whether people with amputation could perceive the alignment perturbations of their prostheses and effectively communicate them. A randomized controlled ...

Computer-generated models are increasingly being used in otolaryngology for teaching purposes, pre-operative planning and clinical simulations, especially when dealing with smaU complex areas such as the middle ear. One technique used to analyse the mechanics of complex models is the fmite-element method whereby the system of interest is divided into a large number of small simple clements. The...

Ossicular repositioning and ossicular prostheses are said to offer an oppotunity to preserve the air space of the middle ear and improve the transmission of sound to the stape footplate. Depending upon the pathological circumstances, any convenient remaining portion of the auditory ossicles may be used to reconstruct a functioning ossicular chain. But the problem of reconstruction is not simple...