Chonnam Med J.  2002 Jun;38(2):161-166.

A Study of Ventilation Tube Using Silicon Rubber-organoclay Composites

• Cho YB
• Choi CN
• Cho Y
• Lee JK

Abstract

Insertion of middle ear ventilation tube with myringotomy is one of the most common operation and used for the treatment of middle ear diseases such as otitis media with effusion. Chronic and persistent effusion in the middle ear could cause hearing loss, pathologic changes of the middle ear, and language or educational problems, in which the tympanostomy tube placement is needed to drain middle ear effusion and tubes have important role to restore an air containing space of the middle ear. Ventilation tubes for the middle ear disease are manufactured with various materials and problems associated with the tubes have been reported. Recently, nanocomposites have aroused an interest, and we prepared a silicon rubber/organoclay nanocomposite. It was fabricated by mixing the silicon rubber monomer with organoclay. The tensile strength and the strain at break decrease by increasing the content of organoclay. For this problem the reactive compatibilizer, Kraton L207 was added to improve cross linking between silicon polymer chains when preparing the nanocomposite. Mechanical properties of the nanocomposite was changed to increase the strain, and good enough for the tympanostomy tubes.

Keyword

Middle ear; Otitis media; Nano composite

MeSH Terms

Ear, Middle
Hearing Loss
Middle Ear Ventilation
Nanocomposites
Otitis Media
Otitis Media with Effusion
Polymers
Rubber
Silicones*
Tensile Strength
Ventilation*
Polymers
Rubber
Silicones