OTITIS-MEDIA AND LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP OF HEARING

The present material is based on a birth cohort of 2,512 children foll owed up from the antenatal period. Data on middle ear infections were collected until the children were 7 years. At the age of 7, audiometry was performed on 298 of them. For reasons other than middle ear infec tion, 32 children were excluded and the final material comprised 266 c hildren. Only those children with clear differences in their history f or otitis media were analysed. Although the pure tone averages (0.5-3 kHz) showed no major changes, different mean air-conduction (AC) thres holds were associated with different histories of otitis media. The 35 healthy children (with no otitis media episodes until 2 years of age) showed the best mean AC thresholds. The 51 children with recurrent ac ute otitis media (RAOM; greater than or equal to 4 episodes of acute o titis media) showed worse thresholds al the high frequencies and those 13 who had had secretory otitis media (SOM) at all frequencies. The c hildren with a history of otitis media, either RAOM or SOM, more often had hearing thresholds exceeding 20 dB. Our results might indicate in ner ear involvement in these long-term follow-up hearing thresholds.