title: Myringoplasties in children: our results.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Myringoplasty, one of the most frequent surgical techniques in otology, is the repair of tympanic membrane when the ear has only a perforation without any ossicular damage. The main objective of our work was to study the outcome of myringoplasty in patients less than 15 years of age. We also reviewed the existence of prognostic factors, such as Eustachian tube functionality, surgical technique and the hearing outcome after surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  We present a retrospective study (1994-2010) with a total of 81 children (under 15 years of age) who had undergone myringoplasty during that period of time. For these children, we analysed age, sex, technique, approach, type of graft, type of perforation, anaesthesia, hearing gain and perforation closure. We correlated these variables with the success of the surgery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The percentage of closure was 84% (n=68). The techniques used were underlay in 79.01% (n=64), overlay in 11.11% (n=9) and sandwich in 9.87% (n=8). The percentage of patients with hearing improvement was 88.40% (n=61).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Myringoplasty is a surgical technique that offers good anatomical and functional results in children. We did not find prognostic factors in our study. We found postoperative improvement of hearing but it was not statistically significant.
authors.affiliation: Servicio de Otorrinolaringología, Hospital Xeral-Cíes (CHUVI), Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain. olallacastro82@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Olalla
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Castro
authors.forename: Adela María
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Pérez-Carro
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ibarra
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hamdan
authors.forename: J Manuel
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Meléndez
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Araujo
authors.forename: Gumersindo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Espiña
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006320:Hearing Tests; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009225:Myringoplasty; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D018058:Tympanic Membrane Perforation / Q000601:surgery*