BILATERAL STAPEDOTOMY IN PATIENTS WITH OTOSCLEROSIS - A DISABILITY-ORIENTATED EVALUATION OF THE BENEFIT OF 2ND EAR SURGERY

This study reports the evaluation of the results of 80 spatedotomies i n patients with bilateral otosclerosis. All pre-and postoperative audi ological data, together with all relevant information of the operation s, were stored in a database and analysed retrospectively. A new appro ach has been developed in order to evaluate the benefit of second ear stapes surgery in a more disability-orientated way using the AMA-crite ria in the Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment. In all pa tients the percentage of Binaural Hearing Impairment (BHI) and the per centage of Impairment of the Whole Person (IWP) were determined accord ing to the AMA-criteria. In patients who had both operations at the Ac ademic Medical Centre it was found after the first operation that ther e was an important decrease in the BHI-percentage (from 26% to 10%) as well as for the IWP-percentage (from 9% to 4%). In addition, the perc entages dropped significantly after the second operation (from 11% to 7% and from 4% to 2%, respectively). During follow-up there were no se rious complications. It is concluded that bilateral stapedotomy is a s afe procedure with good results.