gms | German Medical Science

82nd Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

01.06. - 05.06.2011, Freiburg

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Is sensorineural hearing loss with chronic otitis media due to infection or aging in older patients?

Meeting Abstract

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Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie. 82. Jahresversammlung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie. Freiburg i. Br., 01.-05.06.2011. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2011. Doc11hnod406

doi: 10.3205/11hnod406, urn:nbn:de:0183-11hnod4066

Published: April 19, 2011

© 2011 Marev.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

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Objective To clarify true incidence of sensorineural hearing loss in ears with chronic otitis media (COM).

Methods: Bone conduction (BC) hearing thresholds of 180 preoperative patients (207 ears) with COM and 226 normal individuals (289 ears) were measured by audiometry, and the percentage of ears with BC thresholds being higher than normal range was evaluated in the COM group. In the COM group, the size of the perforation on the eardrum (n=196) and the cross-sectional area of the mastoid air cells based on the axial CT image (n=103) were also measured and correlated with the results of BC threshold.

Results: The percentage of ears with BC thresholds being higher than normal range calculated from comparison to the control group tended to increase with age, ranging from 4.5% in the 20s to 34.1% in the 60s with an average of 26.6%. The increase in the BC thresholds did not correlate with the size of eardrum perforation, but correlated well with the size of the mastoid air cells.

Conclusion: These results may suggest that all measures for early cure, including surgery, should be considered as early as possible for patients with COM.