Stapes Mobilization in Otosclerosis: Primary Results and a Review of Sixty-Three Cases

Abstract
INTRODUCTION During the last seven or eight decades great advances have been made in the surgery of otosclerosis. In the light of its most recent phase—stapes mobilization—it is of interest to recall that the earliest attempts to correct the hearing loss due to this disease were also aimed at remobilization of an ankylosed ossicular chain. Historical Review Kessel (1876) suggested mobilization in ankylosis of the stapes even before the actual nature of otosclerosis was known—at a time when the disease was considered a kind of dry sclerosis of the middle-ear mucosa. Michel's* report dealing with mobilization of the stapes dates from the same year. Boucheron † (1888) separated the incus and the stapes from each other and then tried with a special hook to render the latter mobile in the oval window. In some cases he obtained good results in the incipient stages of the disease. Miot ‡ (1890) obtained