[Tympanoplasty - News And New Perspectives]

Techniques and biomaterials for reconstructive middle ear surgery are under steady, ongoing development. At the same time, clinical post-surgery results are evaluated to determine success or failure of the therapy. Routine quality assessment and assurance is of growing importance in the medical field, and therefore also in middle ear surgery. The exact definition and acquisition of outcome parameters is essential for both a comprehensive and detailed quality assurance. These parameters are not the audiological results alone, but also additional individual parameters which influence the postoperative outcome after tympanoplasty. Selection of patients and the preoperative clinical situation, the extent of the ossicular chain destruction, the chosen reconstruction technique and material, the audiometric frequency selection and the observational interval are only some of them. If these parameters are not well documented comparative analyses between different studies are of limited value. The present overview aims to describe, compare and evaluate some of the existing assessment and scoring systems for middle ear surgery. Additionally, new methods for an intraoperative quality assessment in ossiculoplasty and the postoperative evaluation of suboptimal hearing results with imaging techniques are available. In the area of implant development functional elements were integrated in prostheses to enable not only good sound transmission but also compensation of occurring atmospheric pressure changes. In combination with other components for ossicular repair they can be used in a modular manner which, so far show experimentally and clinically promising results.