SENSORINEURAL HEARING LOSS IN CHRONIC MIDDLE EAR CLEFT DISEASE : A PREVALENCE STUDY FROM SOUTH INDIA

Thisstudy examines the interplay between Sensory Neural Hearing Loss ( SNHL )and Chronic Suppurative Otitis Media ( CSOM ) when viewed in the context of a patient’s age anddisease type/duration. Thisstudy was conducted at Tilak Hospital,Tiruchirappalli after examining 200 patients (200 ears) suffering from CSOM with hearing loss. The patients selected were between 15 - 45 years and with minimum 5 years of untreated CSOM. It was observed that patients with more than 16 years of untreated disease had a stronger tendency to develop SNHL. Consequently, a direct relation between the duration of untreated CSOM vis-a-vis the onset of SNHL was observed.Additionally,this study also did not show anyspecial relationship between the causation of SNHL by the squamous variant of CSOMsince the mucosal variant was found to be equally culpable.Finally, this study also documents key data on CSOM in the southern parts of India.