Outcome of canal wall down mastoidectomy: experience in sixty three cases

A canal wall down mastoidectomy (CWDM) is an effective technique for eradication of advanced chronic otitis media or cholesteatomas. A retrospective study was conducted at a Malaysian Tertiary Medical Center between June 1996 to December 2003 to evaluate the outcome of Modified Radical Mastoidectomy(MRM), a form of CWDM for patients with chronic active otitis media (OM) with cholesteatoma, chronic mastoiditis or chronic active OM with cholesteatoma and mastoiditis. All new cases of MRM which fulfilled the selection criteria were reviewed. The main outcome measures were the hearing outcome and status of dry ear postoperatively. A total of 84 patients had undergone CWDM. However only 63 patients (26 male, 37 female) were included for analysis. The age of the patients ranged between 5 months to 72 years (mean, 31years). The majority of the patients (86%) were adults and 9 (14%) were children. The ossicular chain was eroded in 91% (57 cases). There were 33 patients (53%) who showed no improvement of Air Bone Gap (ABG) closure while 16 patients (25%) had a post-operative improvement. The presence or absence of stapes suprastructure was found to be the major factor in determining the amount of ABG (Chi squared test, P = 0.025 preoperatively and P = 0.031 postoperatively). A dry ear was achieved in 78% of patients with 3% recurrence rate. In conclusion, the study showed that a proper MRM gave high percentage of dry ear and this procedure did not worsen the hearing.