Pediatric tympanoplasty: Our experiences in a tertiary care teaching hospital of Eastern India

Abstract

Objective: The study objective was to study successful graft uptake and hearing gain by using different graft materials in pediatric tympanoplasty. Materials and Methods: Patients younger than 16 years of age who had undergone tympanoplasty between January 2016 and February 2019 were included in this study. Temporalis fascia or perichondrium was used as the graft material in tympanoplasty. Patient details such as age, sex, side of operated ear, operation technique, audiological profile before and after surgery, and the status of postoperative graft were noted. An intact graft and air–bone gap (ABG) ≤25 dB were considered as successful outcome after postsurgical period. Preoperative audiogram and audiogram after 6 months of surgery were advised for comparison.Results: Thirty-six pediatric patients were included in our study. Temporalis fascia graft was used as the graft material in 22 patients and cartilage graft was used as the graft material in 14 patients. The successful graft uptake was 89% in the temporalis fascia group, whereas it was 96% in the cartilage group. In temporalis fascia group, ABG before surgery was 35.53 dB, ABG after surgery was 17.12 dB, and the postoperative gain was 18.41 dB. In the tragal cartilage group, preoperative ABG was 32.42 dB and postoperative ABG was 15.13 dB, with a postoperative gain of 17.29 dB. The comparison between the temporalis fascia and the tragal cartilage groups was statistically significant for successful graft uptake (P = 0.0119) and hearing outcome (P = 0.0484). Conclusion: Temporalis fascia gives better hearing outcome, whereas tragal cartilage gives better graft uptake in pediatric tympanoplasty.