A comparative study of the clinical results obtained with plastipore and ceramic ossicular prostheses in otologic surgery.

We describe our experience with clinical tolerance to total and partial ossicular prostheses using ceramic and plastipore and the functional results obtained. We have found that ceramic is well tolerated (with a 4% incidence of rejection) in contrast to plastipore (which had a 19% incidence of rejection). The ceramic partial and total prostheses give satisfactory function results, and 63% and 62% of our patients, respectively, were found to have postoperative air-bone gaps of less than 20 dB, and average air-bone gap gains of 16 and 21 dB.