Hearing outcomes following myringoplasty for patients from developing countries with chronic otitis media

Objective: The purpose of this study is to compare hearing outcomes following myringoplasty for chronic otitis media for patients from developing counties with those of urban Australian patients. Subjects & Methods: This study is a retrospective review of 110 patients (118 ears) with non-cholesteatomatous chronic suppurative otitis media who underwent myringoplasty at The Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital from 2003 to 2007. Patients who had emigrated from a developing country were analysed as one group and Australian born patients were analysed as another. Patients were excluded from the study if their hearing was normal or only mildly impaired in the affected ear pre-operatively. Outcomes are expressed in terms of tympanic membrane closure, improvement in air conduction (AC) pure tone average (PTA) and achievement of AC PTA ≤ 40 dB HL post-operatively. Results: Patients from developing countries demonstrated greater improvements in hearing following myringoplasty, mean gain in AC PTA 16.6 dB, than urban Australian patients, 9.6 dB. This difference was statistically significant (unpaired t-test; t = 2.66, p < 0.05). Conclusion: Patients from developing countries with hearing impairment secondary to chronic otitis media can achieve hearing outcomes following myringoplasty at least comparable to urban Australian patients. This paper was presented at the 2009 Australian Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Annual Scientific Meeting, Gold Coast, QLD.