Health Education

Name of Medical Device

Artificial stapes, total ossicular implants.

Description

Artificial stapes or total artificial auditory ossicles are implants inserted in the middle ear cavity to replace the original non-functional or worn auditory ossicles for sound transmission.

When to Use

For patients with otosclerosis, congenital stapes fixation, otitis media, or cholesteatoma leading to abraded auditory ossicles.

Possible Side Effects

• Wound infection or wound hematoma.
• Vertigo may occur, and in a few patients vertigo may last for weeks.
• Facial nerve damage may occur in rare cases.
• Few patients may suffer from sensorineural hearing loss (about 1%) after operation, and the hearing is worse than that before operation. Therefore, patients with hearing loss in one ear should carefully consider the risk of this procedure.
• In rare cases, atrophic eardrum, eardrum collapse, or poor middle ear ventilation may occur.
• The middle ear cholesteatoma may occur in very few patients (less than 0.5%).

Postoperative Care

• You may take a bath or shampoo but you should be careful not to let water gets into your ear. Cotton or earplugs may be inserted into the affected ear to avoid possible infection caused by the inflow.
• Avoid swimming before the ventilation tube falls off and the eardrum heals. Water may enter the middle ear cavity by the ventilation tube during swimming and cause infection.