The ossicles are the tiny bones of hearing that conduct sound from the ear drum to the inner ear (cochlea). These bones can be disconnected due to trauma or due to chronic ear infections, and this would significantly impair hearing. Surgery to repair the ossicular chain is sometimes done entirely through incisions in the ear canal but often is combined with an incision in the skin behind the ear. It is often combined with tympanoplasty (repair of the ear drum) and/or mastoidectomy (removal of disease from the mastoid bone behind the ear).