Aided Air Conduction Threshold as a Predictor of Cochlear Reserve in Otosclerosis Patients

Otosclerosis is a primary disease of the otic capsule and the ossicles. Otosclerosis is one such surgically correctable cause of conductive deafness. Patients with elevated bone conduction (BC) thresholds and Poor Cochlear reserve, are not considered a good candidate for otosclerosis surgery. Sometimes, it might be difficult to decide to operate these patients considering relatively poor cochlear function. However, sometimes we may label a conductive or mixed hearing loss as essentially or purely sensorineural, Due to the phe¬nomenon known as Carhart s notch. Up to our knowledge there is no objective test to estimate the true cochlear reserve in otosclerosis patients. The rationale behind this study was the lack of easy and accurate clinical method to estimate the true cochlear reserve and to predict the hearing threshold outcome post operatively. The objective of this study was to evaluate the aided air pure tone thresholds as an easy, accurate way to estimate the true cochlear reserve.