Endoscopic surgery cuts time and serious risks for congenital ear malformations

People born with congenital ossicular malformation often need surgery to fix their hearing. This review looked at two common ways to operate: endoscopic ear surgery and microscopic ear surgery. The team analyzed data from 304 patients with 320 ears. They wanted to know which method worked better and was safer. The results show that endoscopic surgery took significantly less time to perform. On average, it was about 10 minutes shorter than the microscopic approach. This shorter time means less time under anesthesia for the patient. The review also found that endoscopic surgery was linked to a lower rate of complications overall. More importantly, serious problems like nerve injury or hearing loss were seen in the microscopic group but not in the endoscopic group. These serious issues were not reported for the endoscopic patients. The review did not find a big difference in how much hearing improved or how many people reached a specific hearing goal. Both methods achieved similar results for hearing levels. The study suggests endoscopic surgery could be a reasonable choice for doctors to consider.