title: Is small-fenestra stapedotomy a safer outpatient procedure than total stapedectomy?
abstract: We compared two stapedoplasty techniques to evaluate whether one technique is safer than the other as an outpatient procedure and to demonstrate possible reasons for outpatient failures. We performed a retrospective study of patient records of 94 operated adult patients who were all initially scheduled for outpatient surgery for otosclerosis (47 total stapedectomies and 47 small-fenestra stapedotomies). Six patients (13%) with stapedectomy and 1 patient (2%) with stapedotomy had to stay overnight at the hospital due to postoperative vertigo and nausea. The number of outpatient failures was statistically significantly different between the stapedoplasty techniques (p = 0.05). Five patients (11%) with stapedectomy and 2 patients (4%) with stapedotomy had a drop in bone conduction threshold between 5 and 8 dB pre- to postoperatively (n.s.). The short-term hearing improvement did not differ statistically significantly between the techniques when compared to the preoperative values. Small-fenestra stapedotomy is the safer procedure to be performed as outpatient setting than total stapedectomy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland. juha-pekka.vasama@pshp.fi
authors.forename: J-P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Vasama
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kujala
authors.forename: T P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Hirvonen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D005276:Fenestration, Labyrinth; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010040:Otosclerosis / Q000601:surgery*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013201:Stapes Surgery / Q000379:methods*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D016896:Treatment Outcome