[The art of tympanoplasty and its clinical illustration].
BACKGROUND
The development of tympanic membrane surgery is based on 150 years of surgical experiences, medical and technological innovations. There are two major techniques of tympanic membrane reconstruction depending on the graft related to the different anatomic layers of the eardrum.


OBJECTIVE
We evaluate different risk factors of the tympanoplasty such as the age of the patient, the tubal function, the middle ear inflammation, the status of the contra-lateral ear, the localization and the size of the perforation, the surgical techniques and the type of the graft.


METHODS
We illustrate and comment on those risk factors considering 122 simple tympanoplasties and a large overview of the literature.


RESULTS
We show that the graft position doesn't interfere with the surgical results and we specify our attitude to control the risk factors.


CONCLUSIONS
To obtain excellent results, surgical indications have to be extremely rigorous as with surgical techniques.
Gérard
J M
JM
Service d'oto-rhino-laryngologie, Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, avenue Hippocrate 10, 1200 Bruxelles, Belgique. jmarcgerard@hotmail.com
Thill
M P
MP
Gersdorff
M
M
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007049:Iatrogenic Disease; D008297:Male; D010035:Otitis Media, Suppurative / Q000150:complications; D011182:Postoperative Care; D011300:Preoperative Care; D012307:Risk Factors; D018058:Tympanic Membrane Perforation / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery*; D014433:Tympanoplasty / Q000379:methods*