Analysis of type of tympanograms across different age groups in a tertiary care hospital: a retrospective study

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Tympanometry is a non-invasive test clinical test for the assessment of middle ear status/functioning. Several studies over the past few years have produced conflicting results regarding changes in the middle ear function with advancing age. Hence, the present study is aimed to give evidences on distributions of type of tympanograms in males and females under various age groups.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> The study followed retrospective design, where data collected from January 2017 to October 2017 were used. A total of 2,292 tympanograms of the 1146 patients were analysed. Descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon’s signed rank test were used. A p-value <0.05 was considered as significant. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> It was documented that higher occurrence of ‘B’ type and ‘A<sub>d</sub>’ type of tympanogram in paediatric group and geriatric group respectively. As it is expected, ‘A’ type of tympanogram is predominant in adult and older adult group. Also, there was no gender difference seen in type of tympanograms.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Higher occurrence of ‘B’ type of tympanogram in paediatric group warrants medical line of treatment and educating on ear-hygiene in them.</p>