Comparative study of anterior tucking and cartilage support tympanoplasty with respect to graft uptake and hearing outcome
<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Tympanic membrane perforation in chronic otitis media exposes the middle ear mucosa to exogenous source of infection and also produces conductive hearing loss. To overcome this problem various surgical techniques of tympanoplasty using different graft materials have been tried with varying degrees of success rate. The purpose of this study was to compare anterior tucking and cartilage support tympanoplasty with respect to graft uptake and hearing outcome.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> This prospective study comprised of 50 consecutive patients with chronic otitis media of tubo tympanic type during October 2015 to September 2017, which were divided into two groups. Group A (25 patients) underwent type 1 tympanoplasty with anterior tucking method, Group B (25 patients) underwent type 1 tympanoplasty with cartilage support. The primary result was measured in view of graft uptake & hearing capacity outcome at 6 months post operatively by performing pure tone audiometry. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> In anterior tucking tympanoplasty group out of 25 patients, the graft uptake was good in 22 patients and 23 patients showed good improvement in hearing, while in cartilage support tympanoplasty group all the 25 patients the graft uptake was good and all showed good hearing improvement postoperatively. In our study both the groups have significant hearing improvement and in cartilage support tympanoplasty results were better.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> The aim of tympanoplasty is to treat middle ear and tympanic membrane defects. In this study we subjected the patients for anterior tucking and cartilage support tympanoplasty for two different groups respectively and both methods showed significant hearing improvement.</p>