Hearing results after tympanoplasty are stable short-term: A prospective database study

Objective: To evaluate the short-term stability of postoperative hearing results after tympanoplasty. Study Design: Prospective database study. Setting: Tertiary referral center. Patients: 1,367 cases of tympanoplasty I-IV were registered in the OTOKIR database between February 2004 and November 2013. Intervention: The authors included the 553 cases attending postoperative follow-ups at both 3 and 12 months. Main Outcome Measure: Analysis of the changes in puretone average of air conduction (AC), air-bone gap, and speech reception threshold and Word Recognition Score between follow-ups were performed. Results: The overall mean change between follow-ups was 0.7, 0.5, and 0.3 dB for the AC, air-bone gap, and speech reception threshold, respectively. A majority of cases (87.7%) had a change in AC of 10 dB or less, and only 7.6% of the tympanoplasty type I cases had a decrease in AC of more than 10 dB. Of the 1,367 cases registered, 47.5% of cases were lost to follow-up at 12 months. Conclusion: The changes in hearing results after tympanoplasty are minimal during 3 to 12 months after surgery. This suggests that 3-month results are as valid for reporting as 12-month results. In addition, a possible bias that compromises the validity of reported results is introduced at 12 months because half of the cases are lost to follow-up. Including results from 3-month postoperative follow-up when reporting on tympanoplasty could reduce bias in reporting and enable more centers to contribute valid results.