Impact of the demographic and aetiological factors and intraoperative findings on postoperative outcomes in chronic otitis media surgery

Abstract

Background/aim: Surgical success is related with many factors belonging to both the patient and the disease. This study aims to analysethe preoperative and intraoperative characteristics, the postoperative results, and the factors affecting the surgical success in differenttypes of chronic otitis media (COM).Materials and methods: A total of 1510 ears of 1398 patients who underwent COM surgery were included in the study. Postoperativeresults were obtained from 376 ears of 356 patients who had been followed after surgery. The demographic characteristics of the patients,such as age and sex, operative findings, preoperative audiological examination results, and final audiometric and otoscopic examinationfindings, were retrospectively obtained from the archives of the department.Results: The most frequent diagnosis was simple COM (39.9%), and the most frequently performed surgery was tympanoplastywithout mastoidectomy (46.6%). The overall hearing success rate was found to be 75.8%. Postoperative hearing success was significantlyassociated with the chronic otitis subgroup, ossicular pathologies, and the condition of the middle ear mucosa. Postoperative graft takerate was found to be 78.6%. Graft success was statistically significantly higher in patients with normal middle ear mucosa. Performingmastoidectomy, the presence of patency in aditus ad antrum, and being a paediatric case had no impact on graft success.Conclusion: Factors affecting the success of COM surgery include age, chronic otitis subgroup, location and size of perforation, thecondition of the middle ear mucosa, and the level of the ossicular disease. These factors should be known and an appropriate treatmentplan should be prepared.