(This is part of a three-volume series. The two others are: Volume 2 – Mastoid Surgery and Reconstructive Procedures, and Volume 3 – Surgery of the External Auditory Canal)
Author: Mirko Tos, MD. Foreword: Michael E. Glasscock III, MD
Publisher: Thieme – 403 pages, with 1,103 illustrations
Book Review by: Nano Khilnani
In this book the author Dr. Mirko Tos covers various aspects of middle ear surgery, including preoperative evaluation and management of ear disease, anesthesia, and numerous surgical techniques including incisions, graft materials, ossicular reconstruction, and many other topics.
Dr. Michael E. Glasscock, the writer of the Foreword for this book, notes this about Dr. Tos: “His thirty years of experience are evident in his broad knowledge of temporal bone anatomy and middle ear physiology and histology. What makes this book unique is that the author himself made all the drawings himself. The pictures are simple and straightforward, and therefore, easy to follow and understand.”
Indeed, the more than 1,100 images present in this extensive text make this book especially valuable, both for trainees in the practice of middle ear surgery, with step-by-step drawings of surgical procedures, and as a catalogue and reference source for established practitioners.
The contents within the 400-plus pages of this book consist of 22 chapters that are organized within three broad parts, as shown below:
- Approaches
- Indications for Surgery and Preoperative Management
- Anesthesia
- Endaural Approach
- Retroaurical Approach
- Superior Approach
- Anterior Approach
- Tympanotomies
- Myringoplasty
- Graft Materials
- Myringoplasty: General Aspects and Definitions
- Onlay Techniques
- Underlay Techniques
- Perichondirum and Cartilage in Myringoplasty
- Myringoplasty in a Curved Ear Canal
- Allogenous Ear Drum Transplantation
- Ossiculopasty and Tympanoplasty
- Tympanoplasty – General
- Type 2 Tympanoplasty, Stapes Present
- Type 2 Tympanoplasty with Biocompatible Materials
- Transposition and Pexis in Type 2 Tympanoplasty
- Tympanoplasty in Partial Defects of the Stapedial Arch
- Tympanoplasty with the Malleous Handle Missing
- Type 3 Tympanoplasty with the Stapes Absent
- Type 4 and Type 5 Tympanoplasty
Dr. Tos points out in his Preface that “explosive, worldwide development of middle ear surgery” occurred in the 1960s, and during this and the ensuing decade, groundbreaking research was done on the histology of the middle ear, as well as on the epidemiology, etiology, and pathogenesis of secretory otisis.
To give you an idea of what you will find in this book, let’s take a look inside chapter 7, Tympanotomies, on page 70. It begins with a definition of a tympanotomy:
“Opening the tympanic cavity by elevating a tympanomeatal flap together with the fibrous annulus. As a diagnostic surgical procedure, exploratory tympanotomy is used in many unclear cases of conductive hearing loss, or to diagnose a hidden cholesteatoma in the tympanic cavity.”
The author then names four different types of tympanotomy “depending on the location of the elevation of the tympanomeatal flap”: posterior, inferior, anterior and superior tympanotomy. To give you an idea of how extensively this book is illustrated, this 15-page chapter alone contains 56 fine-line drawings.
Within this chapter you will find detailed coverage the four main types of tympanotomy as mentioned above, as well as one specific subtype of inferior tympanotomy (hypotympanotomy) and one subtype of superior tympanotomy (aditotomy).
This is an excellent volume on middle ear surgery, with detailed explanations and illustrations, and it, along with the other two volumes mentioned at the beginning of this review, constitute a must-have, comprehensive series for all otologists and ear surgeons.
Editor:
Mirko Tos, MD is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Otorhinolarungology at Gentofte Hospital and at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Foreword:
Michael E. Glasscock III, MD, FACS is with the Otology Group in Nashville, Tennessee.
