Abstract
To clarify whether adult patients with attic cholesteatoma show clinical features that differ with age, 99 ears of the patients with attic cholesteatoma who underwent canal wall reconstruction tympanoplasty in our hospital were included in this study. Patients who had already undergone tympanoplasty in other hospital were excluded. They were divided into the following two groups according to their age; younger age group consisted of the patients in their twenties and thirties, and elderly age group consisted of the patients in their fifties and sixties. The following three items were analyzed in the patients of both age groups.
1) The size of mastoid cells measured by preoperative temporal bone CT.
2) The extent of middle ear aeration evaluated by postoperative temporal bone CT.
3) Postoperative hearing.
Statistical analyses were carried out using the unpaired t-test and the χ2 test. P values of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
As the results, compared with elderly age group, younger age group showed the following statistically significant differences.
1) Larger size of the mastoid cells. (P＜0.001, t test).
2) Better postoperative mastoid aeration (P<0.001, χ2 test).
3) Better hearing outcomes (P<0.001, χ2 test).
It was concluded that adult patients with attic cholesteatoma showed different clinical features depending on their age. This suggested that there may be some etiological differences between the two age groups.
