Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. May 26, 2023; 11(15): 3481-3490
Published online May 26, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i15.3481
Chronic otitis media and middle ear variants: Is there relation?
Fatma Dilek Gökharman, Düzgün Can Şenbil, Sonay Aydin, Erdal Karavaş, Özge Özdemir, Arzu Gülşah Yalçın, Pınar Nercis Koşar
Fatma Dilek Gökharman, Özge Özdemir, Arzu Gülşah Yalçın, Pınar Nercis Koşar, Department of Radiology, Ankara Training and Research Hospital, Ankara 06230, Turkey
Düzgün Can Şenbil, Sonay Aydin, Department of Radiology, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Erzincan 24100, Turkey
Erdal Karavaş, Department of Radiology, Bandırma 17 Eylül University, Balıkesir 10200, Turkey
Author contributions: Gökharman FD and Şenbil DC conceived the idea for the study; Gökharman FD, Aydin S, Karavaş E, and Özdemir Ö designed and undertook the literature review; Yalçın AG, and Koşar PN collected data; Şenbil DC performed the statistical analysis, figures, and appendix and analyzed and interpreted the data; Gökharman FD and Aydin S wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Karavaş E and Özdemir Ö revised the subsequent drafts of the manuscript; All authors reviewed and agreed on the final draft of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University Institutional Review Board, No. KAEK-EBYU-2020-085.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data is available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Düzgün Can Şenbil, MD, Academic Research, Doctor, Research Assistant, Department of Radiology, Erzincan Binali Yıldırım University, Hacı Ali Akın street, Erzincan 24100, Turkey. senbilcan@gmail.com
Received: March 8, 2023
Peer-review started: March 8, 2023
First decision: March 24, 2023
Revised: March 27, 2023
Accepted: April 21, 2023
Article in press: April 21, 2023
Published online: May 26, 2023
Processing time: 77 Days and 20.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Chronic otitis media (COM) is an inflammatory disease that lasts for a long time. It is common in developing countries. Hearing loss can result from COM. The relationship between variations in middle ear anatomy and COM was investigated in our study.

AIM

To compare the prevalence of middle ear anatomic variations between the cases with COM and healthy individuals.

METHODS

This retrospective study included 500 patients with COM and 500 healthy controls. The presence of those variants was determined: Koerner’s septum, facial canal dehiscence, high jugular bulb, jugular bulb dehiscence, jugular bulb diverticulum, sigmoid sinus anterior location and deep tympanic recesses.

RESULTS

A total of 1000 temporal bones were examined. The incidences of these variants were respectively (15.4%-18.6%), (38.6%-41.2%), (18.2%-4.6%), (2.6%-1.2%), (1.2%-0%), (8.6%-0%), (0%-0%). It was observed that only high jugular bulb (P < 0.001) and anteriorly located sigmoid sinus frequencies (P = 0.002) in the case group were statistically significantly higher than the control groups.

CONCLUSION

COM is a multifactorial disease and variants of middle ear have always been important in terms of potential risk for complication during surgery but rarely associated with COM as an etiology or as a consequence of the disease. We didn't find a positive correlation between COM and Koerner’s septum and facial canal defect. We ended up with a significant conclusion with the variants of dural venous sinuses -high jugular bulb, dehiscence of jugular bulb, diverticulum of jugular bulb and anteriorly located sigmoid sinus- that have been studied less and frequently associated with inner ear illnesses.

Keywords: Chronic otitis media; Radiology; Inflammation; Hearing loss; Mastoid cells; Head and neck

Core Tip: Chronic otitis media (COM) is a chronic inflammatory disease. It is frequently seen in developing countries. COM can cause hearing loss. In our study, the relationship between the variations of middle ear anatomy and COM was investigated. Not many studies have been done on this subject in the literature. Our study was conducted by comparing patients and control groups. The relationship between different anatomical variations in the population and COM was investigated.