Subjective and objective outcomes of tympanoplasty surgery at National Hospital Abuja, Nigeria 2005–2009

The objective of this study is to determine the subjective and objective outcomes of tympanoplasty surgery carried out in patients with otitis media and to identify factors responsible for these outcomes. The study setting is tertiary care urban referral hospital in a developing economy and the study methodology is a prospective analysis of patients with diagnosis of chronic suppurative otitis media that had tympanoplasty with or without mastoidectomy between May 2005 and September 2009 at National Hospital Abuja. Subjects were evaluated for age, sex, size and site of perforation, status of operated ear(s) (dry/discharging), status of the contralateral ear, surgical technique, subjective and objective pre-operative and post-operative hearing scores, average post-operative follow-up time, and post-operative complications, and results were statistically analyzed. A total of 45 patients (51 ears) were operated. Age distribution was 8–52 years. Type 1 tympanoplasty was done in 41 patients and Type 3 in 4 patients. Seven of the patient had concomitant mastoid surgery (cortical mastoidectomy). 3/51 of the cases had discharging ears at surgery. 16/45 of the patients (19/51 ears) had cartilage graft tympanoplasty, while 29/45 (32 ears) had temporalis fascia tympanoplasty. 15/16 of the cartilage group as well as 26/29 of the fascia group reported subjective hearing improvement, whilst the actual graft take was 12/16 of the cartilage group and 23/29 of the fascia group. Objective hearing improvement was observed in all of the cartilage as well as 26/29 of the fascia group. This study confirms success of tympanoplasty among Nigerians, and recommends that subjective hearing assessment should form part of indicators for success following tympanoplasty