A study of status of contralateral ear in unilateral chronic otitis media in 500 patients

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> The aim of this study was to examine the contralateral ear clinically, audiologically and radiologically and compare the findings with squamous and mucosal type of chronic otitis media (COM).</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A cross sectional study conducted in patients attending ENT Department, Government Medical College, Amritsar between December 2016 to November 2018. The study was conducted in 500 patients of either sex aged between 8 to 60 years with unilateral COM without perforation or history of ear discharge in the contralateral ear. Otoscopy, pure tone audiometry and X-ray mastoid or high-resolution computed tomography temporal bone were done on the patients. The results were recorded and analysed with SPSS software. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> 82% patients were found to have some abnormalities in the contralateral ear. On otoscopy abnormalities in contralateral ear includes retraction of tympanic membrane, thinning and tympanosclerotic patch, most common abnormality being retraction of tympanic membrane. Radiological analysis of contralateral mastoids showed 39% diploic and 22.8% sclerotic mastoids. Hearing status in the contralateral ear showed 45.6% patient with normal hearing, 48.6% with conductive hearing loss and 5.8% with mixed hearing loss. 40.4% contralateral ears had mild, 12% had moderate and 2% had severe hearing loss.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Contralateral ear pathologies were more in those who had squamosal type of COM than who had mucosal type in the diseased ear. The contralateral ear shows unmistakable predilection towards developing COM in the future.</p><p class="abstract"> </p><p> </p>