Feasibility and Efficacy of Endoscopic Middle Ear Surgery and Tympanoplasty

YANG Haidi; GAO Minqian; XIONG Hao; LIANG Maojin; ZHENG Yiqing

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-2922.2017.04.003

Abstract：Objective To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of endoscopic tympanoplasty. Methods This was a retrospective study including 42 patients with chronic suppurative otitis, attic cholesteatoma or tympanosclerosis who received endoscopic tympanoplasty. Graft success rate and audiometric improvement after surgery were assessed. Re-sults The overall graft take rate was 95.2%(40/42). Perforation in two cases were completely healed after additional en-doscopic treatment in the outpatient office. Mean air-bone gap before surgery was 52.32 ± 14.70 dB and improved to 30.59±12.16 dB after surgery (P<0.001). Partial flap necrosis was seen in 3 cases and recovered after appropriate treat-ment. There were no complications such as severe sensoneural hearing loss, facial paralysis or vertigo. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that endoscopic tympanoplasty can be effectively applied in middle ear surgery, including for cases of attic cholesteatoma. A better view of the middle ear can be acquired during endoscopic surgery compared to micro-scopic surgery, facilitating preservation of non-diseased structures. In addition, endoscopic surgery requires smaller inci-sions and less medical expenditures and provides better hearing improvement. Although endoscopic middle surgery car-ries promises in the future, disadvantages such as single-hand operation need to be overcome.