How does childhood otitis media change the radiological findings of the temporal bone?
CONCLUSIONS
Inflammatory changes in the middle ear mucosa since childhood may affect mastoid pneumatization without a change in the position of the sigmoid sinus. Also, despite the fact that recurrences of inflammatory middle ear disease lead to bone destruction, we did not see any relationship between the childhood otitis media and bone destruction.


OBJECTIVE
To assess radiological findings in temporal bone in both healthy ears and diseased ears in patients with unilateral chronic otitis media since their childhood.


METHODS
Twenty-five patients who had unilateral otological symptoms, such as recurrent otalgia, purulent otorrhea or hearing loss since their childhood were included in the study. Assessment of radiological parameters was performed using a quantitative digital image processing computed tomography program.


RESULTS
Mastoid volume values in the chronic otitis media group were significantly smaller when compared with those of a healthy group (p < 0.05). In healthy and diseased mastoid groups, there were no significant differences between groups when we assessed Henle spine-sigmoid sinus (HS-SS) distances. There was a significant correlation (p = 0.001) in both the groups when we compared mastoid volume values with HS-SS distances. There was ossicular discontinuity in two cases and in one patient tegmen tympani was not intact in diseased ears.
Habesoglu
Tulay Erden
TE
Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Istanbul, Turkey. tulayhabesoglu@yahoo.com
Habesoglu
Mehmet
M
Toros
Sema Zer
SZ
Deveci
Ildem
I
Surmeli
Mehmet
M
Sheidaei
Shahrouz
S
Baran
Ahmet
A
Egeli
Erol
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004432:Ear, Middle / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008416:Mastoid / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D009929:Organ Size; D010033:Otitis Media / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D055815:Young Adult