BACKGROUND: The main cause of conductive hearing loss in the presence of a completely normal tympanic membrane is otosclerosis. There are different types of prostheses that could be used in the operation with different materials, designs, and shapes. The prostheses utilized in this study including both Teflon and Robinson are assessed. The aim of our work is to match and determine the surgical steps, postoperative results, and surgical complications of both Teflon piston and Robinson titanium prosthesis in line with the improvement in hearing and therefore the ability to decrease the air-bone gap.
Results: stapedotomy done for 40 patients with Teflon piston and Robinson stainless steel piston prosthesis, 20 patients for each type. Both groups were matched based on age and preoperative bone-conduction scores. Follow up for all patients were done up to 6 months postoperatively. We have excluded all revision cases. A comparison between both prostheses was assessed by differences in the Air Bone (AB) Gap and surgical difficulties and complications. Both groups showed no significant difference either in hearing improvement or postoperative decrease of an air-bone gap. The Robison titanium piston needs more surgical skills than Teflon one. Both groups had no surgical complications.
Conclusions: There is an equal benefit to patients with the use either of Teflon piston or Robinson protheses and there is no statistically significant difference between both of them. We need a long time of follow up the results to be analyzed.
Keywords: Teflon prosthesis, Robinson prostheses, otosclerosis, stapedectomy.