Congenital Cholesteatoma

Congenital cholesteatoma is one of the more common causes of the onset of childhood conductive hearing loss unrelated to middle ear effusion. If undiagnosed, the disease can progress to irreversibly destroy the conductive hearing architecture, as well as the surrounding skull base of the lateral temporal bone. When diagnosed early, the growth can be removed and the conductive hearing mechanism preserved in the vast majority of patients. Because most children are asymptomatic, the burden falls on primary care providers to perform pneumatic otoscopy and visualize all quadrants of the tympanic membrane even in young children who frequently resist attempts to conduct a thorough examination to rule out suspicious lesions. [Pediatr Ann. 2016;45(5):e167-e170.].