Clinical manifestations of aural fullness

Even though aural fullness is ubiquitous among patients presenting to otolaryngology clinics, the association between aural fullness and disease development has not yet been clearly determined.

Our study was performed on outpatients from June 2006 to February 2010 whose major complaint was "ear fullness", "aural fullness", or "ear pressure". We assessed their demographic and clinical characteristics, including sex, associated diseases, symptoms, otoscopic findings, audiology test results, and final diagnoses.

Among 432 patients, 165 (38.2%) were males and 267 (61.8%) were females, with mean ages of 42±19 years and 47±17 years, respectively. Tinnitus, hearing disturbance, autophony (p<0.01) as well as nasal obstruction and sore throat (p<0.05) showed a statistically significant correlation with aural fullness. Among patients who complained of hearing fullness, tests and measures such as impedance audiometry, speech reception threshold, and pure tone audiometry generated statistically significant results (p<0.05). Ear fullness was most frequently diagnosed as Eustachian tube dysfunction (28.9%), followed by otitis media with effusion (13.4%) and chronic otitis media (7.2%). However, 13.4% of patients could not be definitively diagnosed.

Among patients complaining of ear fullness, Eustachian tube dysfunction, otitis media with effusion, chronic otitis media were most commonly observed. Performance of otoscopy, nasal endoscopy, the Valsalva maneuver, and additional audiological tests is necessary to exclude other diseases.