Short and Long-term Hearing Outcomes of Successful Inlay Cartilage Tympanoplasty of Patients Older and Younger than 60 Years of Age

BACKGROUND: Inlay cartilage tympanoplasty (ICT) are commonly used in the repair of chronic otitis media with small to medium sized perforation of the tympanic membrane. However, few studies have addressed dynamic hearing results after ICT. In this study, we compared the short-term and long-term hearing outcomes of successful inlay cartilage tympanoplasty between patients older and younger than 60 years of age. METHODS: Twenty-five patients who underwent 27 procedures were enrolled in a retrospective case series study conducted in a tertiary referral center. The mean age was 60.3 years (range: 42 to 76 years). The mean follow-up time was 565.7 days (range: 369 to 1,075 days).The preoperative, initial postoperative and long-term hearing results in the patients with total repair of the ear drum were analyzed. RESULTS: There were 15 ears from 13 patients who were younger than or equal to 60 years (mean: 51.3 years), and 12 ears from 12 patients who were older than 60 years (mean: 71.7 years). In the younger group, the mean (± SD) hearing improvement was 6.7 dB (± 7.4) in short-term, and 11.2 (± 10.0) dB in long-term hearing examinations. In the older group, the mean (± SD) hearing improvement was 0.9 (± 10.7) dB in short-term and -2.2 (± 15.1) dB in long-term hearing examinations. In the younger group, the mean (± SD) air-bone gap closure was 6.3 (± 7.9) dB in short-term and 13.0 (± 6.1) dB in long-term hearing examinations. In the older group, the mean (± SD) air-bone gap closure was 4.7 (± 10.6) dB in short-term and 2.6 (± 14.2) dB in long-term hearing examinations. CONCLUSIONS: The hearing improvements continued in the younger group of patients for more than one year after surgery. The younger group had better air-bone gap closure than the older group (＞ 60 years) (p ＜ 0.05). (J Taiwan Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2016; 51:118-126)