The Finer Structure of the Auditory Ossicles in Otosclerosis

Introduction THE QUESTION of involvement of the auditory ossicles in labyrinthine otosclerosis, in spite of a considerable number of investigations, has still remained controversial. It is generally agreed upon that circumscribed true otosclerotic foci in the ossicles are extremely rare (Covell,1Nager,2Wustrow,28), except of course secondary involvement of the stapes through ingrowth of otosclerotic bone from the window frame or primary otosclerosis of the stapedial footplate. However, one group of authors, notably Lempert and Wolff,3,4Martin and Persillon,5Covell and Feinmesser,6Fior and Martinozzi,7Albernaz and Covell,8claims that prestages or early stages of the disease are common in the ossicles, whereas others, such as Müller,9Dietzel,10Beickert,11lately fail to mention any such changes. Under the circumstances an analysis of the findings in the ossicles in 43 serially sectioned temporal bones from the collection of the Department