Otitis media is an important and a highly prevalent disease of the middle ear and poses serious health problem world wide especially in developing countries where large percentage of the population lack specialized medical care. With a large number of patients frequently undergoing tympanoplasty for tubotympanic type of CSOM, it’s important to assess the severity of the disease and predict the outcome of the surgical management whenever done. A normally functioning eustachian tube is an equally essential physiologic requirement for a healthy middle ear and normal hearing. In this study we have used the middle ear risk index (MERI) developed by Kartush which generates a numeric indicator of the severity of the middle ear disease to stratify patient groups according to the severity of the disease and to evaluate the efficiency of MERI score in predicting the outcome of tympanoplasty.
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