Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria for our meta-analysis were as follows: (1) journal articles published in English; (2) articles concerned with TM perforation especially due to COM; (3) studies describing myringoplasty or type I tympanoplasty, and comparing surgical outcomes of the endoscope with the microscope; (4) either temporalis fascia or perichondrium as a source of the graft tissue; (5) graft placement method via underlay technique.
Exclusion criteria for our meta-analysis were as follows: (1) articles describing other types of otitis media (e.g. acute OM or OM with effusion) or other pathologies (e.g. cholesteatoma or middle ear tumours); (2) the aid of an endoscope holder; (3) cadaver studies; (4) animal studies; (5) irrelevant publications to our study.