Search strategy
We performed a systematic search for all available studies comparing surgical outcomes of the endoscope with the microscope in the databases of PubMed, Cochrane library Ovid, Scopus, Google scholar, and ClinicalTrials; dating from inception until 22 November 2019. We used the following keywords (in different combinations): microscopic, endoscopic, type I tympanoplasty, myringoplasty, chronic otitis media. Review articles and bibliographies of each identified study were searched for additional references that may contain further related studies.