Myringoplasty in children

The fact that myringoplasty in children is relatively less satisfactory than in adults, motivated us to perform a retrospective study, gathering material on 53 children aged 4-12 years who underwent 68 operations to determine if any pre-operative or intra-operative parameters might predict the outcome of surgery. Results show that the overall success rate of type I tympanoplasty was 78%, and that the majority of failures occurred later in the follow-up course. Furthermore, age and technique of operations played the most important roles in the results. The status of the non-operated ear did not influence the surgical outcome. Finally, revision myringoplasty was equally as successful as the primary operations.