Ear disease in relation to age in the cleft palate child and adolescent.

Ninety-eight cleft palate subjects were studied to ascertain the eventual adolescent and adult hearing. There were 72 complete clefts of lip and palate and 26 clefts of the palate alone. The incidence or side of ear disease did not appear to be influenced by this type of cleft. Other systemic anomalies were present in 11 cases with congenital middle ear abnormalities in 3 and sensory neural hearing loss in 8 subjects. Progressive improvement in incidence of hearing loss from 94% at 4 years to 42% at 20 years was noted with the strict definition of hearing loss as 10 dB conductive loss at any one frequency. 10% of ears were left with permanent structural changes in the middle ear. In only 2 patients was there a bilateral hearing loss of 20 dB or more through the speech range.