Surgical Outcomes
No complications were noted following the surgery in either of our study groups. Regardless of the surgical procedure, all patients demonstrated improvement in the air-bone gap after the surgery. The results showed no significant difference between the pediatric and adult groups with respect to the rates of surgical success and postoperative hearing gain; the same was observed whether VTI, tympanoplasty, or cholesteatoma TEES management was performed. Both VTI and mastoidectomy had 100% success rates in each group. All patients recovered well, with the patients having either satisfactory ventilation tube function after VTI or no residual or recurrent cholesteatoma after mastoidectomy. We found no significant difference between children and adults regarding to the success rate of tympanoplasty, although the rate was lower in the pediatric patients (80% in children vs. 96% in adults, p=0.253) (Table 2).
We observed no significant difference between these two groups with regard to rates of surgical success, postoperative complications, and postoperative hearing gain when VTI, tympanoplasty, or TEES management of cholesteatoma was performed. All patients achieved improved air-bone gap, and none experienced residual or recurrent disease during the 18- to 48-month postoperative follow-up after the management of cholesteatoma. Therefore, we believe that TEES may also have a satisfactory surgical outcome in children as well as in adults.