CONCLUSION: Current guidelines recommend reporting short-term results of > 12 months after treatment of conductive hearing loss. This study suggests that short-term hearing results after stapedotomy recorded at the 3-month follow-up are without loss of vital information compared with data from the currently recommended > 12-month follow-up. The use of 3-month data in reporting outcome could reduce the bias inherent to the loss to follow-up at 12 months.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the stability of short-term postoperative hearing after stapedotomy for otosclerosis.

METHODS: This was a prospective database study; 371 cases with otosclerosis were registered in the database between August 2004 and June 2013. We included the 166 primary cases and 37 revision cases that had attended both follow-ups.

RESULTS: The mean changes in postoperative hearing thresholds between the 3-month and 12-month follow-up in both primary and revision cases were minimal and clinically insignificant. In all, 3-5% of primary cases and 14-16% of revision cases experienced a change of ≥ 10 dB for the worse of one or more parameters between follow-ups. Results were also stable when considering a range of traditional success criteria. Other complications following surgery were infrequent and typically resolved long term.