Otosclerosis: what it is, how it manifests itself and what is the cure for the pathology that affects hearing

What is ear otosclerosis? Disease involving the auditory system, leads to complete deafness: let's see the symptoms and the cure.

Problem that mainly affects women between the ages of 20 and 40, otosclerosis involves a progressive loss of hearing . It is a disease that, to date, has no clear cause. In addition to hearing loss, otosclerosis leads to rather annoying if not unbearable tinnitus.

Otosclerosis: causes and symptoms

Non-inflammatory dystrophic disease, otosclerosis is localized in the labyrinthine bone capsule. In most cases, it affects both ears and causes hearing loss, which is acquired deafness. At the moment, the factors that generate the disease are not known, but it seems that heredity plays an important role. Otosclerosis has clear symptoms, one above all: progressive deafness , first unilateral and then bilateral. The latter can be of the transmissive, mixed or pure sensorineural type. In addition to hearing loss, the disease is characterized by tinnitus .

Ear otosclerosis is diagnosed with two specific tests , the audiometric tone and the impedance. With the results in hand, the doctor will be able to determine if it is deafness caused by problems with sound transmission (by air, by bone or both) and if the otosclerotic focus, which fixes the plate of the stirrup to the oval window, prevents evocation of stapedial reflexes.

Otosclerosis: from diagnosis to treatment

Bilateral otosclerosis can only be treated in one way: surgery . In most cases, a stapedotomy is performed, with which a hole is made in the plate of the stirrup, part of its superstructure is removed and a titanium micro-prosthesis is inserted. Generally, the operation is performed in an outpatient hospital, lasts just under an hour and leaves no visible scars.

It should be noted that, in some patients, hearing improves a lot after surgery, but it does not return to 100%. In addition, tinnitus seems to continue to affect the hearing system, albeit less frequently.

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