Introduction: Middle ear surgeries are done mainly to correct the conductive hearing loss, however, some of these surgeries may end up with sensorineural hearing loss which is undesirable. Hence, this study was undertaken to determine the incidence and prognosis for sensorineural hearing loss in patients following middle ear surgeries.

Materials and Methods: 153 patients who underwent middle ear surgeries were selected for the study after excluding patients who were undergoing middle ear surgeries for intracranial complications of middle ear disease and conditions which could cause progressive sensorineural hearing loss. The patients were assessed with pre and post operative pure tone audiometry up to 2 months.

Results: We found that out of 153 ears, 143(93.465%) had no post operative sensorineural hearing loss while 10 (6.535%) had suffered hearing loss at the end of 2 months for the high frequency (4KHz). Majority of the patients who suffered hearing loss were of cortical mastoidectomy with tympanoplasty (70%), tympanoplasty (20%) and modified radical mastoidectomy (10%) respectively.

Conclusion: In this study, it was found that incidence of development of sensorineural hearing loss after middle ear surgeries in the immediate post operative period is high, but has tendency to recover spontaneously.