A preliminary evaluation of the use of an automatic impedance tympanometer in the diagnosis of otitis media with effusion in children: a report from the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit.
Microscopic examination by two trained examiners, conventional impedance tympanometry by a trained audiometrist, automatic impedance tympanometry by a person with minimal training and puretone audiometry by trained audiometrists were compared in 468 ears, studied blind. There was complete examiner agreement in microscopic examination in 465 (99.3%) ears, minor disagreement in three (0.7%) ears. There was a more complex relationship between examination methods, with microscopic evidence of effusion being present in 88.2% of ears showing B tympanograms to conventional tympanometry and in 66.7% of ears to automatic tympanometry. Automatic tympanometry provides a reasonably accurate method of detecting middle ear effusion, but tends to overdiagnose this condition compared to alternate methods.
D000158:Acoustic Impedance Tests / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000293:Adolescent; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D008722:Methods; D010033:Otitis Media / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology