Publication:

A study of occurrence of postoperative sensorineural hearing loss after middle ear surgeries

Background Chronic otitis media is the most common middle ear disease that is encountered in our hospital. There are various surgical procedures that are performed in cases of COM and other similar conditions of the middle ear. Any type of otosurgical procedure involves the risk of inner ear damage. As middle ear surgery is also performed for functional reasons this risk should be taken into consideration. There have been some studies mentioning many insults to the cochlea during middle ear surgeries. Some studies claim that sensorineural hearing loss post-surgery is not significant at all. In view of these contradictory studies, further study is essential on this subject.

Methods All patients undergoing middle ear surgeries are subjected to pure tone audiometry pre-operatively and tenth day, one month and three months postoperatively. Hearing assessment done with pure tone audiometer. The hearing threshold for pure tone audiometer was determined in a sound treated room at frequencies ranging from 125-8000 Hz for air conduction and 250-4000 Hz for bone conduction.

Results Sensorineural hearing loss was not found in any of the patients postoperatively on 10th day 1st month and 3rd month.

Conclusions There was no significant variation between preoperative and postoperative bone conduction levels.  Therefore middle ear surgeries have not resulted in any SNHL. Duration of ear discharge, duration of surgery, type of surgery had no bearing on postoperative sensory neural hearing levels.