Can surgery treat hearing loss?

Although hearing aids can help most people with hearing loss, a few people may benefit instead from surgery to improve or correct their hearing. Some kinds of hearing loss can be treated only with surgery. Depending on the cause of the hearing loss, surgery can be done to repair malformations in the ear, to drain fluid, to replace or reconstruct the ossicles (malleus, incus, and stapes -- the three bones in the middle ear that move in response to sound vibrations), or to implant a device to improve hearing. Implantable devices include bone-conducting hearing aids, middle ear implants, ossicle bone-stimulating hearing aids, cochlear implants, and auditory brainstem implants. Sometimes surgery is performed to improve a person's hearing to the point that it can be helped by a hearing aid.