Biochemical Aspects of Otosclerosis

Abstract

IN SPITE OF the possibilities for symptomatic treatment by a variety of surgical interventions, otosclerosis has been and continues to be one of the unsolved problems in otology. Although innumerable attempts aimed at bringing light into the etiology of the disease were not successful, the formal genesis of otosclerosis as well as questions concerning developmental and structural features of the temporal bone and especially of the labyrinthine capsule have been cleared up to a large extent by morphologic studies. The bony labyrinth differs biologically and from an anatomicopathological point of view from all other bones of the skeleton. It is generally known that the osseous labyrinth like all other bones of the skull is preceded by a cartilaginous primordium. In the normal ossification process, all cartilage is replaced by compact and spongy bone, but in the endochondral layer of the labyrinthine capsule relatively large residues of hyaline cartilage persist throughout