The treatment of chronic serous otitis media with the ventilation tube has been widely accepted. However, many tubes are extubated before healing occurs.
The Koken tube type BR was inserted into 152 ears of 110 children, aged from 1 to 15 years, to a total of 176 intubations, between 1985 and 1987. The average time from intubation to extubation was 9 months. Hearing loss was markedly improved most of ears after intubation. The recurrence rate was 15.8 percent in the treated ears. There were few complications of intubation such as otorrea (4%), granulation formation (5%) and permanent ear drum perforation (5%). Most of them were controled with conservative theraphy.
There was no instance of cholesteatoma formation secondary to intubation.
From the present study, the Koken tube insertion therapy seems to be one of the most successful treatment of middle ear effusion in children.
