COMPLICATIONS OF TYMPANOSTOMY TUBES IN AN INNER-CITY CLINIC POPULATION

While both prophylactic antibiotics and tympanostomy tube insertion ha ve a role in the treatment of recurrent acute otitis media (AOM) and o titis media with effusion (OME) in children previous work has shown th at patients in our urban clinic are not compliant with prophylactic an tibiotics. Concerned about the potential for decreased compliance in a non-compliant population, we performed a retrospective review to asse ss the incidence of complications from the insertion of tympanostomy t ubes in the same pediatric clinic population. A total of 391 tubes wer e placed in 165 patents. Follow-up ranged from 0-49.4 months with a me an of 21.3 months. Three ears (1.14%) had persistent perforations. Tym panosclerosis was found in 30 ears (11.1%). No ear showed a chronic re traction or cholesteatoma. Six ears (1.70%) developed postoperative ot orrhea. Thirty-five patients had at least one episode of otorrhea outs ide of the perioperative period, and a total of 60 episodes (19.6% of ears) occurred during the study period. The mean pure tone average pri or to tube placement was 25.0 dB, with tubes in place was 2.44 dB and after the last set of tubes had extruded was 6.97 dB. Our study shows that the incidence of complications of tympanostomy tubes was minimal in our inner city clinic population.