Surgical treatment of patulous Eustachian tube - a systematic review.

INTRODUCTION Patulous Eustachian tube (PET) seems to be caused by a defect in the mucosal valve of the Eustachian tube. It causes troublesome autophony occasionally leading to an impaired quality of life. In the present study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of surgical treatment of PET through a systematic review of published studies. METHODS A systematic review was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis statement. Medline, Embase and Cochrane were searched systematically for publications about PET. METHODS Fourteen publications counting a total of 510 ears from 390 patients who had been treated surgically for PET were included. Complete relief of symptoms ranged from 7% to 77%, improvement from 7% to 86% and 0% to 41% had no response. No studies reported aggravation of symptoms. CONCLUSIONS A number of suggested treatments appear to be promising for PET, but it is difficult to propose a specific surgical treatment due to low numbers of patients, lack of clinical trials and cohort studies without control groups.