Comparative Study of Permeatal Sandwich Tympanoplasty and Postaural Underlay Technique

Tympanoplasty is the most common operation performed by an Otolaryngologist right from the period of residency. During the last hundred years various modifications in this surgical technique have come up because of continued efforts made by otologists all over the world to achieve the best surgical outcome.

To compare the graft take up and complications associated with the Permeatal Sandwich Tympanoplasty performed with the use of Otoendoscope and traditional Postaural Underlay technique of Tympanoplasty from 1(st) September 2014 to 30(th) August 2015.

Patients attending the ENT OPD, suffering from Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media (CSOM) were selected on the basis of type of perforation and their workup was done to assess the candidature for tympanoplasty.

A total of 100 patients were included in the study and the overall graft take was 92.3% in cases of Permeatal Sandwich technique as compared to 64.58% in the case of postaural underlay technique, with a majority of the failures in the large central perforation group rendering a p = 0.021 for patients operated for Large perforations, p = 0.036 for moderate perforations and p = 0.476 for small perforations. The overall p = 0.000649 which is highly significant. On comparing the complications there were only 2 cases in Permeatal Sandwich Technique compared to 25 cases in Postaural Underlay technique rendering a highly significant p-value 0f 0.000000348. There was a difference in hearing improvement with majority of the cases improving to the range of 16-25 dB in Permeatal Sandwich technique compared to 26-45 dB in Postaural Underlay technique.

Permeatal Sandwich technique produce much better results when compared with Postaural approach in terms of graft take up, complications and hearing improvement.