Audiometric Changes after Ventilating Tube Insertion in Middle Ear Effusion

Kwang, Sung Hoon; Kim, Kwang Il; Hong, Bong Ki; Song, Kuy Tae

Abstract

Audiometric and clinical findings of 90 patients(146 ears) who were suffered from otitis media with effusion and were treated by tympanostomy tube placement at KangNam General Hospital from Apr. 1994 to Jun. 1996 were analyzed. The results were follows; 1) Sex distribution shows 52 males and 38 females. Age distribution is 4 to 81, and fifty-one percent of them are younger than 9-year-old. 2) Pre-operative pure tone average was 27.1dB in air conduction and 20.6dB in air-bone gap. Post-operative pure tone average of air conduction and air-bone gap was average 12.6dB and 7.5dB at 13th day and 9.3dB and 5.6dB at 44th day after v-tube insertion, respectively. 3) For patients younger than 9-year-old, pre-operative average air conduction threshold was lower and air-bone gap was smaller than that of older age groups. But there are no significant difference of post-operative changes between younger than age of 9 and age between 10-19. 4) There are no significant differences among the groups with different nature of effusion in pre-operative hearing threshold. However the hearing threshold changes in air conduction and air-bone gap were larger in mucoid group than serous one. 5) There are no differences in the pre-operative hearing among the groups with different amount of effusion, but changes of post-operative hearing threshold was bigger in large amount group. 6) The incidence of post-operative otorrhea was 15%(22 ears) and its incidence was higher in mucoid group than serous one.