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Presurgical evaluation of retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness in BAHA surgery
Maciej Wróbel1, Mariola Popko, Witold Szyfter
1Department of Otolaryngology and Oncological Laryngology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Poland. wrobmac@ump.edu.pl
Objective:
A growing population of implanted patients benefit from the Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA). An important step in the surgery is subcutaneous tissue reduction. The proper preparation of the implant site depends on relevant tissue removal, which is combined with incision, surgical technique, and preliminary retroauricular tissue thickness.
Study Design:
Prospective analysis.
Setting:
Authors attempt to measure the retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness and try to trace the correlation between retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness with objective parameters such as sex, height, weight, and age.
Patients:
Group of hundred randomly selected patients were enrolled in the study.
Intervention(S):
Standard ultrasound with liner transducer probe was applied to measure the tissue thickness.
Main Outcome Measures:
Sex, weight, height, and age were correlated with retroauricular tissue thickness; results also were calculated for body mass index.
Results:
The retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness ranged between 2.0 and 11.0 mm with the mean value of 5.25 mm. Statistical validation revealed strong correlation with weight and body mass index. Statistical difference was found between retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness and sex, confirming women to have thinner subcutaneous tissue than men. The age of the patient also was predictive but without the linear correlation. Conducted measurements revealed no association between retroauricular subcutaneous tissue thickness and height of the patients enrolled in the study.
Conclusion:
Our results provide a predictive value during preoperative counseling of patients and planning the surgery. Basic information obtained during the examination can help choose the optimal implantation technique. The ultrasound examination applied in the study turned to be an easy and reliable method to assess the retroauricular tissue thickness before the surgery.
