Enhanced biofunctionality of plastipore ossicular prostheses with the use of homologous cartilage.

Functional results with Plastipore prostheses inserted in 150 staged intact canal wall tympanoplasties at our Clinic are reported. Two groups of patients have been reviewed: The first group consists of those cases in which the prosthesis is directly in contact with the tympanic graft (77 cases); the second one comprises all cases with interposition of homologous cartilage between the head of the prosthesis and the tympanic graft (73 cases). The aim of this article is to see whether extrusion rate and audiometric and impedance result differences exist between the two groups. We have found a 15.4 percent extrusion rate in the group without cartilage but only a 1.9 percent rate in the group with cartilage (9.3 percent is the overall extrusion rate). There were no substantial differences in functional results between the two groups. It is valuable to outline the different functional results between the two types of prosthesis: TORPs got 56.8 percent excellent results and 78.4 percent good results, while PORPs had only 47.7 percent excellent results and 60 percent good results. Normal compliance (static compliance greater than 0.3 cc) was found in 61.6 percent of cases without cartilage and in 46.7 percent of cases with cartilage.