Bone conduction (BC) is heavily relied upon in the diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss, but is poorly understood. For example, the relative importance and frequency dependence of various identified BC sound transmission mechanisms that contribute to activate the cochlear partition remain unknown. Recently, we have developed techniques in fresh human cadaveric specimens to directly measure scalae pressures with micro-fiberoptic sensors, enabling us to monitor the input pressure drive across the cochlear partition that triggers the cochlear traveling wave during air conduction (AC) and round-window stimulation. However, BC stimulation poses challenges that can result in inaccurate intracochlear pressure measurements. Therefore, we have developed a new technique described here that allows for precise measurements during BC. Using this new technique, we found that BC stimulation resulted in pressure in scala vestibuli that was significantly higher in magnitude than in scala tympani for most frequencies, such that the differential pressure across the partition-the input pressure drive-was similar to scala vestibuli pressure. BC (stimulated by a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid [Baha]) showed that the mechanisms of sound transmission in BC differ from AC, and also showed the limitations of the Baha bandwidth. Certain kinematic measurements were generally proportional to the cochlear pressure input drive: for AC, velocity of the stapes, and for BC, low-frequency acceleration and high-frequency velocity of the cochlear promontory. Therefore, our data show that to estimate cochlear input drive in normal ears during AC, stapes velocity is a good measure. During BC, cochlear input drive can be estimated for low frequencies by promontory acceleration (though variable across ears), and for high frequencies by promontory velocity.

Objectives Ossicular discontinuity may be complete, with no contact between the disconnected ends, or partial, where normal contact at an ossicular joint or along a continuous bony segment of an ossicle is replaced by soft tissue or simply by contact of opposing bones. Complete ossicular discontinuity typically results in an audiometric pattern of a large, flat conductive hearing loss. In contrast, in cases where otomicroscopy reveals a normal external ear canal and tympanic membrane, high frequency conductive hearing loss has been proposed as an indicator of partial ossicular discontinuity. Nevertheless, the diagnostic utility of high-frequency conductive hearing loss has been limited due to gaps in previous research on the subject, and clinicians often assume that an audiogram showing high-frequency conductive hearing loss is flawed. This study aims to improve the diagnostic utility of high-frequency conductive hearing loss in cases of partial ossicular discontinuity by: (1) making use of a control population against which to compare the audiometry of partial ossicular discontinuity patients, and (2) examining the correlation between high-frequency conductive hearing loss and partial ossicular discontinuity under controlled experimental conditions on fresh cadaveric temporal bones. Furthermore, ear-canal measurements of umbo velocity and wideband acoustic immittance measurements were investigated to determine usefulness regarding diagnosis of ossicular discontinuity. Design We analyzed audiograms from 66 patients with either form of surgically-confirmed ossicular discontinuity and no confounding pathologies. We also analyzed umbo velocity (n=29) and power reflectance (n=12) measurements from a subset of these patients. Finally, we performed experiments on 6 fresh temporal bone specimens to study the differing mechanical effects of complete and partial discontinuity. The mechanical effects of these lesions were assessed via laser Doppler measurements of stapes velocity. In a subset of the specimen (n=4), wideband acoustic immittance measurements were also collected. Results (1) Calculations comparing the air-bone gap (ABG) at high- and low-frequencies show that when high-frequency ABGs are larger than low-frequency ABGs, the surgeon usually reported soft tissue bands at the point of discontinuity. However, in cases with larger low-frequency ABGs and flat ABGs across frequencies, some partial discontinuities as well as complete discontinuities were reported. (2) Analysis of umbo velocity and power reflectance (calculated from wideband acoustic immittance) in patients revealed no significant difference across frequencies between the two types of ossicular discontinuities. (3) Temporal bone experiments reveal that partial discontinuity results in a greater loss in stapes velocity at high frequencies as compared to low frequencies, whereas with complete discontinuity, large losses in stapes velocity occur at all frequencies. Conclusions Our clinical and experimental findings suggest that when encountering la...