A comparative study to assess the graft uptake in patients undergoing postauricular tympanoplasty using temporalis fascia vs sliced tragal cartilage

Abstract

context: Tympanoplasty is a surgical procedure to repair tympanic membrane perforation and reconstruct the tympanic membrane and hearing, commonly done after chronic suppurative otitis media and trauma. Aims: To comparatively study the graft uptake in patients undergoing type 1 tympanoplasty using temporalis fascia vs sliced tragal cartilage Settings and Design: The study was a prospective case-control study carried out in the department of ENT, D.Y.Patil medical college, Pimpri Methods and Material: 50 patients undergoing tympanoplasty were divided into 2 groups randomly and operated using Temporalis fascia(TF) in 25 patients and Sliced tragal cartilage(STC) graft in the rest 25 patients. All cases were operated under local anesthesia. A post aural approach was implemented for the surgery. 25 patients were subjected to tympanic membrane repair with temporalis fascia graft and the remaining 25 with Tragal cartilage graft. For tragal cartilage graft incision was taken over the undersurface of the tragus and the obtained tragal cartilage was sliced to a thickness of 0.5 to 1.0 mm. Results: The mean duration of symptoms was 12.72 and 15.84 months in groups A and B respectively. A successful graft uptake was noted in 21(84%) patients in the TF group whereas it was noted in 24 patients in the STC group (96%). There was permanent perforation noted in 4 (16%) patients in the TF group and 1 (4%) patient in the STC group. The difference was non-significant with a P-value of 0.157 Conclusions: In the clinical study performed, postauricular tympanoplasty using the Sliced tragal cartilage was associated with better graft uptake and hence can be regularly employed for tympanic membrane repair compared to Temporalis fascia.