A Comparative Study of Tympanoplasty Using Sliced Cartilage Graft vs. Temporalis Fascia Graft

BACKGROUND objective of the study was to compare the hearing improvement after using sliced cartilage graft with that of temporalis and to compare the graft take-up between the two graft materials. AND METHODS prospective clinical study including 60 patients with chronic mucosal otitis media, who were selected randomly from the department, after obtaining their consent were divided into 2 groups of 30 each, and evaluated according the study . Their pre-operative audiometry was recorded and both groups of patients underwent surgery with one of the graft - temporalis fascia or sliced tragal cartilage with a thickness of 0.5 mm. All patients were regularly followed up and -operative audiometry was done at 3 months. The hearing improvement in the form of closure of air-bone-gap and graft -up was analysed statistically. temporalis fascia graft group had a pre-operative ABG of 22.33 ± 6.24 dB and post-operative ABG of 12.33 ± 4.72 dB with improvement of 10.00 dB. The sliced cartilage graft group had a pre-operative ABG of 20.77 ± 5.75 dB and postoperative of 10.50 ± 4.46 dB with hearing improvement of 10.27 dB. In the temporalis fascia group, 28 (93.3%) patients good graft take-up and in the sliced cartilage group 29 (96.7%) had good graft take-up. There was statistically significant improvement in both of our study groups but there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. was no statistically significant difference in graft take-up also. cartilage graft is a good auto-graft material in tympanoplasty, which can give good hearing improvement and has good take-up, which is comparable with that of temporalis fascia.