[Contralateral hearing and tympanoplasty].
The contralateral hearing level of the operated ear is closely related to its preoperative hearing level, and is an important index to the success of tympanoplasty. We analysed 146 cases of chronic otitis media who had received tympanoplasty by the same surgeon at Kaohsiung Medical College Hospital. From the results of pure tone audiometry, we divided the hearing acuity into the following 5 categories: normal hearing, mild hearing loss, moderate hearing loss, severe hearing loss, and deafness. Referring to the categories of contralateral hearing, we discuss the preoperative hearing level of the operated ear, the occurrence of cholesteatoma, the type of the tympanoplasty, and the auditory gain of the operation. While 23.97% cases had moderate or severe loss of contralateral hearing, their hearing acuity of the operated ear was also poor. Most of cases with normal contralateral hearing received type I tympanoplasty. Compared to the above group, half of the cases with moderate or severe contralateral hearing loss received type III or type IV operations to reconstruct the ossicle chain. Though the type I cases had more hearing gains than the type III cases, those with moderate contralateral hearing loss had good results from the type III tympanoplasty. We also found the cases with cholesteatoma in the operated ear had better contralateral hearing in the contralateral ear than the cases without cholesteatoma. The decision to perform tympanoplasty in cases of the better hearing ear with poor contralateral hearing should be very carefully made so as to improve the postoperative social life of the patients.
Huang
Y C
YC
Department of Otolaryngology, Nan-Men General Hospital, Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan, Republic of China.
Ho
K Y
KY
Juan
K H
KH
Tsai
S M
SM
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002781:Cholesteatoma / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D014433:Tympanoplasty