Correction to: Long-term hearing results of stapedotomy: analysis of factors affecting outcome.

The given and family names of all the co-authors are incorrect in the published article. The correct names should read as follows.

Long-term hearing results of stapedotomy: analysis of factors affecting outcome.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate long-term hearing results of stapedotomy and analyze the influence of patient-, disease-, and procedure-related variables. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective case series. SETTING: Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS: 230 ears (202 patients, 10-74 years) underwent stapedotomy for otosclerosis between January 2008 and August 2014. All cases had early postoperative follow-up (4 weeks post-surgery) and 181 cases had late postoperative follow-up (≥ 1 year, average 32.5 months). INTERVENTION: Stapedotomy procedure for otosclerosis. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Hearing outcome using conventional audiometry. The primary outcome parameter was the postoperative air-bone gap pure-tone average. Postoperative air-bone gap ≤ 10 dB was defined as surgical success. Preoperative, early postoperative and late postoperative hearing results were compared. Influence of patient- and procedure-related variables on hearing outcome was evaluated by logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The postoperative air-bone gap was 10 dB or less in 77.0% of cases early post-surgery and in 70.7% of cases in long-term follow-up. Air-bone gap closure within 20 dB was obtained in 95.7 and 92.3%, respectively. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that a larger preoperative air-bone gap (p = 0.041) and positive family history of otosclerosis (p = 0.044) were predictive for less surgical success early postoperatively, but not on the long term. Age, gender, primary versus revision surgery, presence of preoperative tinnitus and preoperative vertigo did not independently and significantly influence postoperative air-bone gap closure. CONCLUSION: Our series confirms excellent hearing results achieved in stapedotomy surgery, also in long-term follow-up. On the long-term no patient-, disease-, or procedure-related variables were identified as predictors of surgical success.

The relation between psychoacoustical factors and annoyance under different noise reduction conditions for railway noise.

The A-weighted sound pressure level (SPL) is commonly used to assess the effect of noise reduction measures on noise-induced annoyance. While for road traffic noise loudness seems to be a better descriptor of annoyance, for railway noise a systematic investigation seems to be lacking. Thus, in this study, the relation between annoyance and perceptually motivated descriptors was investigated for various conditions of binaural recordings of pass-bys of cargo and passenger trains. The conditions included free field and spectral mitigations caused by a 4 m high noise barrier, a 1 m high noise barrier close to the track, and rail dampers. Forty listeners performed a free magnitude estimation of annoyance for different presentation levels and the ratings were fit to various models. Further, level changes required to evoke a noticeable change in annoyance (annoyance thresholds) were acquired. The models based on the A-weighted SPL explained the ratings and thresholds better when the reduction measure was explicitly provided as a parameter. However, the optimal models were loudness-level-based models, which were able to better describe the annoyance, even independently of the reduction measure. Both experiments underline the effectiveness of loudness when describing the annoyance in the area of railway noise reduction.