This pilot study was made to ascertain the feasibility and the availability of tympanometry in medical examination for three-year-old children to pick up middle ear diseases.
Tympanometry was successfully performed in 308 of 315 children (97.8%). Tympanometric test did not interfere with the flow of medical examination, and this trial was cooperatively accepted by the administration as well as by mothers of examinee.
Thirty-one children were detected for having tympanometric abnormalities (10.1%), twenty of whom were unilateral and eleven bilateral. We could not find the seasonal alteration of this value.
Although the incidence of abnormal tympanograms were lower than expected, we think that introduction of the tympanometry for three-year-old children is useful for turning up the unrecognized middle ear diseases.
