The appearance of a negative middle ear pressure is well-known during the course of secretory otitis media, occasionally leading to complications like tympanic membrane retraction, atelectasis or cholesteatoma. The usual treatment is insertion of ventilation tubes into the tympanic membrane (TM), a procedure that often has to be performed several times, perhaps with insertion of long-term T-tubes. However, repeated tube insertions increase the risk of persisting TM perforations, and for T-tubes the risk may amount to 33%. Hence, there is an obvious need for methods of long-term ventilation with lower risk of persisting perforation. The objective of the present study was to describe the clinical course including the life-time of subannular ventilation tubes (SVT) for long-term middle ear ventilation.
展开▼
