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Published on: May 23, 2021
The contralateral ear in chronic otitis media: a series of 500 patients
Sady Selaimen da Costa1, Letícia Petersen Schmidt Rosito, Cristina Dornelles
1Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Objective:
To study the contralateral ear of patients with chronic otitis media (COM).
Design:
Transversal.
Setting:
Tertiary referral center.
Patients:
A total of 500 consecutive patients who had been diagnosed as having COM with or without cholesteatoma.
Interventions:
Digital otoendoscopy was performed on both ears.
Main Outcome Measure:
Pathologic alterations in the contralateral ear.
Results:
In 75.2% of the patients, the contralateral ear was found to have some structural abnormalities; 60.4% of the patients presented with COM without cholesteatoma, and in this group, 69.9% had an abnormal contralateral ear. In those with cholesteatoma, the contralateral ear was found to be abnormal in 83.3%. The most frequent finding in both groups was retraction of the tympanic membrane.
Conclusions:
Patients with COM in 1 ear have a high chance of presenting with some degree of disease in the contralateral side. We believe that our findings suggest that COM should be ideally approached not as a static pathological incident affecting 1 ear but rather as an on-going process that may affect both ears.
