Hearing results of stapedotomy

Aim: To evaluate hearing results after stapedotomy and comparison with preoperative hearing evaluation. Materials and Methods: Forty otosclerotic patients were enrolled for the study. Pure tone audiometry and impedance audiometry was done in patients. All the patients underwent stapedotomy under local anaesthesia. Postoperatively the patients were followed up monthly for three months and hearing evaluation was done and compared with preoperative evaluation. Results: Statistically highly significant difference was found between preoperative Air bone gap and Air bone gap at 3 months postoperatively (p<0.05). The Carhartz notch disappeared in all the patients at 3 months postoperatively. Also the impedance audiometry showed a shift from ‘As’ to ‘A’ type of curve. Majority of the patients showed Air bone gap to within 10 db (80%).Conclusions: Stapedotomy is the method of choice for the surgical treatment of otosclerosis since the comparison of pre- and postoperative results revealed the significant and statistically verified reduction of Air bone gap.