Background and aim: Complete disruption of the ossicular chain can result in up to 60 dB hearing loss. Hearing restoration surgery comprises ear drum repair and ossicular chain reconstruction in ears housing defective ossicles. The aim of this study was to assess cartilage strip and bone cement in ossiculoplasty.
Patients and methods:This is a prospective, cross sectional study and was carried out on 36 patients (27 females and 9 males) with chronic suppurative otitis media, their age ranged from 12 to 38 years. Patient were subjected to complete history taking, complete ENT examination, preoperative audiological evaluation, high resolution computed tomography "HRCT" and complete laboratory investigations. All patients were operated by tympanomastoidectomy for eradication of middle ear pathology (21 cases underwent canal wall up technique while 15 cases underwent canal wall down technique), Then reconstruction of the ossicular chain was done by cartilage strip and bone cement (30cases between malleus to stapes while 6 cases between incus to stapes). Postoperative assessment done by pure tone audiometry & tympanometry 3 & 6 months postoperatively.
Results: Regarding improvement in hearing 83.3% of our patient were improved while the remaining 16.7% were not. The result of pure tone audiometry & typanometry were significantly improved (p=0.0008). Graft taken occur in 83.3% of cases.
Conclusions: The usage of bone cement with a cartilage strip is a simple and effective method for ossicular reconstruction and associated with significant improvement in conductive hearing loss.