[Study of cleft palate with problems of middle ears and its treatment].

OBJECTIVE

To gain a clear idea of the following: 1. the relationship between the incidence of functional obstruction of middle ear and surgery on cleft palate and patients' age; 2. the bacterial culture of secretion taken from the tympanic cavity with secretory otitis media; 3. the preliminary effects of treatment by inserting a tube into the tympanic cavity of a patient with secretory otitis media.

METHODS

275 middle ears of patients with cleft palate were selected, then acoustic immitence examination and hearing threshold of pure tone were adopted, and bacterial culture was carried out for studying secretion of the middle ear with secretory otitis media.

RESULTS

The tympanograms of 75.5% ears of the patients before cleft palate operation were found to be abnormal, among which patients under 3 years were 81%, and 41.2% ears of those after closure of cleft palate were abnormal. Gram's positive and negative germs of bacterial culture were 20.1% and 24% respectively. The hearing of 6 ears with secretory otitis media has recovered from the moderate hearing loss due to tube insertion. And the tympanograms of 4/8 ears were transformed from type B to type A.

CONCLUSION

It is beneficial to improve function of Eustachian tube if cleft palate can be repaired at an early stage and beneficial to improve the patients' hearing and devlope their speech if a tube is inserted into the typanic cavity in cases of secretory otitis media at an early stage.