[The patulous eustachian tube-novel surgical approaches]

A patulous eustachian tube (tuba aperta) may lead to an enormous reduction in quality of life. A patulous eustachian tube can cause symptoms such as autophony, breath synchronous tinnitus, pressure sensation in the ear, and hearing loss. In combination with so-called "sniffing", it can trigger the development of cholesteatoma. Due to the diffuse symptoms the correct diagnosis of this disease can be challenging. A patulous eustachian tube can be best diagnosed through a well-structured examination including patient history, physical examination with thorough observation of movements of the tympanic membrane, and tympanometry with reflex decay. This publication reviews recent literature on the patulous eustachian tube. We focused on the evaluation of the different surgical strategies such as the patulous eustachian tube reconstruction, the Kobayashi plug or the injection of Vox® implants into the torus tubarius.