Effects of aging on hearing results in tympanoplasty

The effects of aging on the preoperative and postoperative hearing results of tympanoplasty were assessed in 642 patients with chronic suppurative otitis media (COM) or cholesteatoma (CHL). Analysis focused on the correlation between hearing results and age for each disease and type of tympanoplasty. Data were evaluated by calculating the regression line, mainly using second order polynomial regression analysis. Averaged air and bone conduction thresholds (PTA) in patients were appreciably poorer in younger patients and increased with age, compared with physiological hearing impairment in old age (presbyacusis). Regression lines for PTA of air and bone conduction in patients and for normal data (air conduction) separated from each other after the age of 30 and hearing impairment gradually accelerated with age. Means of air-borne gap, however, were almost the same in each age group, though hearing thresholds in individual patients were distributed widely. This was more dominant in patients who had undergone type III or IV tympanoplasty than those with type I tympanoplasty, and in patients with COM than with CHL. Labyrinthine function thus appears to be gradually aggravated with age in patients with chronic inflammatory ear disease. Patients with chronic otitis media should be thus recommended to undergo tympanoplasty at an early age.