Backgrounds Otosclerosis is an underlying disease of the bony labyrinth. The hearing loss is most often of conductive nature, in some cases the involvement of the bony part of the cochlea results in mixed hearing loss. Aims: The aim of the analysis was to answer the question whether a surgery on one of the ears affects the state of the other ear in the course of otosclerosis. Methods The analysis included 140 patients hospitalized and operated on between 2010 - 2016. Only patients who had not had a surgical operation within the middle ear due to otosclerosis prior to the study were included in it. An audiological assessment was performed with the use of pure tone threshold audiometry taking into account. Results In the group of patients with no Carhart's notch, the mean threshold of bone conduction was statistically lower than before the procedure for the frequencies of 500, 1000 Hz and statistically equal for the frequency of 2000 Hz. The same analysis in the group of patients with Carhart's notch present in the pre-surgical tonal audiogram of the non-operated ear showed a statistically significant lower value of the post-surgical threshold bone conduction value. Conclusion It was confirmed the possibility of improving the hearing of the non-operated ear after the stapedotomy of the opposite ear, in the author's own studies by an average of 5 dB in the low-frequency range.
Keywords: Carhart's notch; non-operated ear; otosclerosis; stapedotomy.