Portmann Operation

Portmann's surgery (also known as stapes interposition) is a surgical procedure used to restore hearing in patients with otosclerosis.

The operation was developed by the French otorhinolaryngologist Georges Portmann in 1952. The essence of the operation is to restore the mobility of the stapes - one of the auditory ossicles of the middle ear.

With otosclerosis, the stapes often fuses with the oval window, which leads to wired hearing loss. During surgery, the surgeon makes an incision behind the ear to gain access to the middle ear. He then separates the stapes from the oval window and places a thin plate of Teflon, platinum, or other material between them. This plate restores mobility of the stapes and improves sound transmission through the middle ear.

Portmann surgery is considered an effective procedure for improving hearing in otosclerosis. The success of the operation depends on precise surgical technique and careful patient selection. Modern modifications of the Portmann method allow achieving good results in more than 90% of patients.

Portman is an operation, the essence of which is to remove part of the temporal bone along with the ear capsule and, if necessary, involve the middle ear tissue to prevent the development of otoreactive phenomena. One of the indications for performing Portmann surgery is Meniere's disease, in particular its chronic relapsing periods. In this case, we are talking about purely mechanical removal of the source of the disease, not only without resorting to the use of adrenergic sympathomimetics, but also regarding the elimination of the humoral cause.

An expanding indication for this unusual operation may be true intracranial hypertension with hypertensive labyrinthitis in the stage of full compensation. After neuromastoiditis associated with a decrease in the tone of the vestibular muscles with chronic insufficiency of endolymphatic spatial pressure, this operation is performed as a last resort in order to quickly stop dizziness and blockade of the labyrinth. There are operations of Meniere decompression or internal decompression according to J. Brainstein (Segarely operation), when the affected labyrinthitis due to dislocation is based on the formation