Prospective study of 'otological injury secondary to head trauma'

The aim of study was to evaluate etiological factors, types of skull fracture and associated hearing loss in 50 cases of head injury. This was prospective study involving 50 cases of head injury. Each patient will be subjected to detailed history, otological and neuro otological examination, radiological study followed by audiological assessment by pure tone audiometry. Road traffic injuries were the most frequent cause of injuries in our patients comprising 64% of the total, personal accidents/domestic falls, assaults and agriculture and related injuries were responsible for 8% of the total injuries each. Other causes of the injuries were sports injuries (6%), industrial accidents (4%) and fire arm injuries (2%). Out of the 9 patients having temporal bone fracture 7 cases (78%) had longitudinal fracture and 2 cases (22%) had transverse fracture. Out of the 21 patients having hearing loss, 5 patients (23.8%) had conductive hearing loss, 9 patients (42.86%) had mixed hearing loss and 7 patients (33.34%) had sensorineural hearing loss. Facial nerve palsy was present in 2 patients (28%) among longitudinal fracture cases and 1 patient (50%) among transverse fracture cases. Motor Vehicular accident (MVA) are still the commonest cause of injuries compared to the other mode of injury. Patients with longitudinal fracture showed conductive and mixed loss and patients with transverse fracture showed sensorineural hearing loss. Incidence of facial nerve paralysis was more with transverse fracture cases than with longitudinal fracture cases.