Allergy skin testing under general anesthesia with treatment response in ninety-two patients with chronic serous...

This is a study of Ninety-two patients with chronic serous otitis media, all of whom have been previously treated with myringotomy and middle-ear ventilation tubes. Intradermal skin testing was done by the Rinkel technique under general anesthesia in conjunction with myringotomy and associated surgical procedures. Twenty of these patients were tested in the office one week later with little or no change in their intradermal test results. Eighty-four patients were managed with a hyposensitization program. Of these, fifty-seven have their tubes out with no fluid recurrence, twelve continue to have episodic fluid recurrence and middle-ear infections. Five patients had one or more tubes replaced, and ten were lost to follow-up.