EUROPEAN ARCHIVES OF OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGY, cilt.276, sa.12, ss.3295-3299, 2019 (SCI-Expanded)
Purpose We aimed to evaluate air-bone GAP (ABG), graft success and hearing gain according to the size and location of perforation in patients who underwent endoscopic transcanal type 1 cartilage tympanoplasty due to the tympanic membrane perforation and chronic otitis media. Methods The 104 patients (52 male and 52 female) who underwent endoscopic transcanal type 1 cartilage tympanoplasty, were evaluated retrospectively. Tragal cartilage grafts were utilized in all patients. Perforation size/location, duration of surgery, pre-operative and post-operative (6th month) average ABG, and pure-tone audiometric results (at 500-1000-2000-4000 Hz) as well as overall graft success were evaluated. Results The mean duration of surgery was 45.60 +/- 17.39 min. Perforations were most frequently located in anterior quadrant with moderate sized. The post-operative air-conduction results were significantly improved at 500-1000-2000-4000 Hz frequencies. Similarly, pre-operative air-conduction pure-tone average (PTA) (35.36 +/- 11.9 dB) was significantly decreased (22.34 +/- 7.9 dB) after postoperative 6 months (p <= 0.001). The overall graft success rate was 93.2%. Moreover, pre-operative mean ABG (19.82 +/- 7.4 dB) was significantly decreased (9.05 +/- 4.3 dB) after postoperative 6 months (p <= 0.001). Conclusions Endoscopic transcanal type 1 cartilage tympanoplasty achieved a high graft success rate, and improved hearing results, regardless of the perforations' location and size. Endoscopic tympanoplasty provides high patient safety and comfort in middle-ear surgery by wide visualization, easy applicability, short-operation duration, low complication risk, and less invasive approach.