Air-bone gap, ABG was in the range of 31--40 db in 17 cases in Group A and 18 cases in Group B respectively; 13 cases in Group A had ABG in the range of 21--30 db.
The average air-conduction thresholds and
air-bone gaps significantly reduced after surgery, and the latters of 62 patients decreased by [greater than or equal to]15 dB.
The decrease in
air-bone gap measure-ments between the first and third records could be considered to positively affect hearing.
It was observed that graft take was obtained in 91% of cases and the audiometric results showed an average residual
air-bone gap of 6.
3) Stapes surgery is considered successful when
air-bone gap is closed to less than 10 dB.
Number of postoperative
air-bone gaps (dB) according to different frequencies 500 Hz 1000 Hz 2000 Hz 4000 Hz 0-10 dB 21 (58%) 17 (47%) 32 (88%) 24 (66%) MASH 11-20 dB 11 (30%) 14 (38%) 2 (6 %) 9 (25%) >20 dB 4 (12%) 5 (15%) 2 (6%) 3 (9%) 0-10 dB 20 (42%) 13 (28%) 33 (70%) 25 (53%) TASH 11-20 dB 20 (42%) 23 (48%) 11 (23%) 16 (34%) >20 dB 7 (16%) 11 (24%) 3 (7%) 6 (13%) MASH: malleus assembly stapes head, TASH: tympanic membrane assembly stapes head Table 3.
Clinical use of vestibular evoked myogenic potentials in the evaluation of patients with
air-bone gaps.
9,10) We have studied the behavior of the CLE in chronic otitis media (COM) through a series of studies focusing on (1) the cellular-level histology (histopathology of 170 human temporal bones with COM) (9); (2) the anatomic-clinical picture (middle ear findings of 500 patients with COM) (10); and (3) the physiology-function (the quantification of the
air-bone gap in the CLE of 463 patients with COM).
Yetiser and Hidir found that cartilage grafting resulted in significantly better results in terms of closing the
air-bone gap.
The success of operation was determined by the degree of closure of
air-bone gap in speech frequencies (500, 1000 & 2000 Hz) and the results were classified into four categories.
As per guidelines for air-bone closure suggested by Kartush, 11 cases had near complete closure of
air-bone gap and only one case had persistent
air-bone gap more than 30 dB.
Audiometry revealed a unilateral conductive hearing loss with a 40-dB
air-bone gap and a type B low tympanogram on the left.
