CONGENITAL AURAL CHOLESTEATOMA - RESULTS OF SURGERY IN 60 CASES

From 1978 to 1993, 59 patients (60 ears) with congenital middle ear ch olesteatoma were treated at the House Ear Clinic, The median patient a ge at presentation was 5 years, and the period of postoperative follow -up was 4.8 years. An intact canal wall was maintained in 58 of 60 cas es and a closed middle ear space in all cases. In 12 operations, later al graft tympanoplasty eradicated the cholesteatoma in one stage; 32 p atients required a second-stage surgery to rule out recurrence, and th e remaining 16 cases required three or more operations to eradicate di sease and reconstruct the hearing mechanism. Thirty-five (63%) of 56 p atients had a postoperative air-conduction threshold pure-tone average (PTA) within 10 dB of the best bone-conduction PTA; 91% were within 2 0 dB. Average speech reception threshold improved from 32 dB hearing l evel (HL) preoperatively to 20 dB HL postoperatively.