Trends of ear syringing at Ibadan, Nigeria

Ear syringing is a procedure by which the external auditory canal is irrigated with a normal saline at body temperature. It is a procedure which every doctor or nurse should be able to perform proficiently. A study of 622 patients that needed ear syringing was done between December 1999 and June 2001 to determine its trend. There were 341(55%) males and 281(45%) females with age ranged from 3.5months to 89 years: 44.4% were in the first decade of life. Cerumen auris 99% remained the commonest indication for syringing in this study with bilateral cerumen auris constituting 53.1% while right and left cerumen auris constituted 24.4% and 21.5% respectively. Cerumen auris constituted 66% of total 933 Otologic cases seen during the study period. Other indications were otitis externa 0.7% (otomycosis 0.5%; bacterial 0.2%) and foreign body 0.3%. The majority of patients (86%) required between 500mls and 1000mls of fluid for irrigation and 94.9% required not more than one attempt at syringing. The complications recorded were mainly vertigo 0.2% and tympanic membrane perforation 0.2% respectively. Thus ear syringing, though simple and sometimes taken for granted may be fraught with dangers; it is a very safe procedure in trained hands and that after at least three attempts of ear syringing for cerumen auris and if it persists despite effective applications of cerumenolytic agents prior to irrigation, the procedure should be discontinued and other methods of imparted cerumen auris removal should be employed.