[Two cases of rare atypical localization of the petrosquamosal venous sinusis in the patients presenting with chronic suppurative epitympanitis complicated by cholesteatoma].

The authors report their original observations of rare and difficultto diagnose atypical localization of the petrosquamosal venous sinusis in the patients presenting with chronic suppurative otitis media. Such localization of this sinus was shown to hamper surgical interventions for sanative treatment.

[A case of successful treatment of angioma of the middle and external ear].

A rare form of benign tumour (angioma of the middle and external ear) is described. The preoperative treatment with the use of embolization of the feeding vessel made possible surgical intervention on a practically "dry" operating field.

[Clinico-audiometric assessment of treatment outcomes in otosclerosis patients].

The review of 7-year experience in surgical treatment of otosclerosis provides the data on examination and intraoperative findings in 280 patients aged from 18 to 62 years with the disease history 2-30 years. Excellent and good postoperative functional results were achieved in 93.2% cases.

[How to raise efficacy of myringoplasty in extensive defects].

A comparative trial of miringoplasty efficacy with or without application of biosynthetic wound cover Biocom-1 was performed in 82 patients with sub- and total chronic defects or acute traumatic rupture of the tympanic membrane (58 and 24 patients, respectively). Better clinico-morphological and functional results were achieved in patients treated with application of Biocom-1 (p<0.05).

[Hearing impairment in the so-called normal ear during Menière's disease].

A detailed audiological examination of 84 specially selected patients was performed. They had Meniere's disease without any audiometric changes in the so-called normal ear. The hearing function was characterized on the basis of threshold tonic audiometry, ultrasound sensitivity, lower limit of perceived sound frequencies, hearing discomfort level, dynamic range of the hearing field, and intelligibility of low voice speech masked by noise.

[Hearing disorders in patients with adhesive otitis media].

This paper presents the results of audiological examinations of 76 patients, aged 18 to 60 years, with adhesive nonperforative otitis media. The hearing function was measured in terms of threshold tonal audiometry, ultrasound hearing sensitivity, lower limit of sound frequency perception, discomfortable loudness, dynamic range of the hearing field, speech intelligibility in the masking noisy environment. In 30% of cases hypoacusis accompanying adhesive otitis media showed symptoms that were similar to those of hypoacusis resulting from inner ear pathologies (descending audiometric curves with high hearing thresholds related to bone conduction and small bone-air interval, high thresholds of ultrasound perception, normal lower limits of sound frequency perception and positive recruitment).

[Current audiological tests in the diagnosis of sensorineural hearing loss caused by noise].

Comprehensive audiological examinations of 69 patients with neurosensory hypoacusis of noise origin have shown that many modern audiological tests fail to discriminate advanced hypoacusis from neurosensory disorders of different nature. In this situation an adequate diagnostic approach is to investigate low voice speech in a noisy environment which may help identify hypoacusis of noise origin that manifests itself in the presence or absence of competing noise.