A comparison between endoscopic and microscopic approaches for stapes surgery: A systematic review

Objectives To evaluate the surgical techniques, approaches, audiological outcomes and complications of endoscopic stapes surgery.Methods Systematic searches of the literature were performed in PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus databases, to identify studies of patients who underwent stapes surgery using endoscopic approaches and studies reporting objective post-operative hearing outcomes. The following information was extracted: surgery duration, complications, surgical technique and audiometric results.Results Fourteen studies were selected for appraisal, which included a total of 282 ears subjected to endoscopic stapes surgery. Endoscopic stapes surgery seems to provide adequate visualisation of the middle-ear structures, thereby allowing less invasive surgery and potentially equivalent audiological outcomes as compared with a traditional microscopic approach. Other advantages of endoscopic stapes surgery include decreased surgery time, a reduced need for drilling, and auditory results comparable to those of microscopic techniques.Conclusion Studies have shown that endoscopic stapes surgery has similar surgical and functional advantages as compared with microscopic surgery.