Prevalence Of Middle Ear Pathologies In Children With Bilateral Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Abstract

During the 1994-1995 years this work was conducted at Sohag university hospital to show the prevalence of middle ear pathologies in young children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. A total of 200 children were included in this study, 113 boy (56.5%) and 87 girl ( 43.5%) .Their age ranging from 4 years to 12 years. All the studied children were investigated by a combination of otoscopic tympanometric and vanous audiologic measurements. This study shows that the prevalence of middle ear pathologies in young children with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss were 30%. Ten (10%) from the studied children were suffered from active disease (effusion, otorrhea) ,(9%) at high risk (high negative pressure) and (11%) had residual diseases. The high prevalence of middle ear pathologies in this study shows the importance of regular otoscopic, tympanometric and audiomoteric screening follow up of these children. The presence of any middle ear pathology and the conductive hearing loss associated with it increased the degree of hearing impairment in the affected ear. In addition to the increased hearing thresholds due to any middle ear pathology, these children may have related problems which hinder the development of aural communication. This study also shows the importance of periodic evaluation of these children to discover any middle ear pathology early and to correct the conductive component of hearing loss associated with it either medically and/or surgically.