Investigation on eardrum evalution and clinical conditions of acute otitis media in Clinical Practice Guideline for Diagnosis and Management of Acute Otitis Media (AOM) in Children in Japan

Especially, in relation to the generation of fever

Abstract

We evaluated the effects of fever among the clinical symptoms included in the items of severity evaluation in the Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Acute Otitis Media in Children on the severity grading and its correlation with the severity of tympanic membrane findings. The following results were obtained:
1) Whether or not the fever score was included in the severity evaluation did not significantly affect the grading based on the total, mean, or median severity score.
2) While the fever score affected the severity grading in patients with a total severity score of 12or 13, it had little effect on the severity grading of patients with moderate or mild otitis media. Consequently, the percentage of patients with moderate disease increased without the addition of the fever score.
3) The total score of tympanic membrane findings, which are considered to represent the essential pathology of acute otitis media, was not significantly correlated with the severity of fever. Therefore, fever is considered to be unrelated to the severity of acute otitis media.