‘User-friendliness’ is an important factor in the choice of ossicular prosthesis. The current titanium prostheses have a flat, open head plate and are designed to sit under the tympanic membrane. Previously, the author had designed titanium prostheses with a malleus notch extension at the head plate. The present study aimed to assess whether these customised prostheses were user-friendly, compared with conventional prostheses.

Fourteen surgeons were recruited to examine the user-friendliness of several ossicular prostheses. They performed ossiculoplasties on temporal bones and rated the user-friendliness of the malleus notch prosthesis against that of some of the more popular conventional ossicular prostheses.

For malleus-stapes assembly, eight out of 13 surgeons preferred the malleus notch prosthesis to the Düsseldorf and Goldenberg designs. For malleus-footplate assembly, six out of 10 surgeons preferred the malleus notch prosthesis to the Düsseldorf and Richards designs. Most of the surgeons stated that the reconstruction was more stable using the malleus notch prosthesis.