Medical Strategy for Congenital Aural Atresia

Otolaryngologist's Dilemma

Abstract

Surgery for congenital aural atresia is among the most difficult and challenging procedures for both ear surgeons and patients. Some previous reports have not recommended this type of surgery with confidence, because of the difficulty of the surgery itself and because postoperative hearing gain has not been as good as was expected, while postoperative complications such as middle ear infection sometimes occur. How then should the otolaryngologist approach this disease? When microtia coexists with aural atresia, the otolaryngologist sometimes hesitates to decide how to treat atresia because of excessive attention to microtia. The difficulty of atresia surgery should be considered apart from microtia because the microtia itself is not a crucial factor in such surgery. At present, it is hoped that otolaryngologists will develop several strategies such as reliable surgery with good postoperative hearing results without postoperative complications and new devices such as BAHA.