Ventilating tubes in the middle ear. Long-term observations.

This follow-up study is of the same patients we studied in 1976. Then we thought the results were unsatisfactory in 20.9% of the ears treated with ventilating tubes. The hearing losses varied from 25 to 60 dB and chronic otitis media developed in 7.7% of the cases. We think the results of treatment with ventilating tubes in chronic serous otitis media are not good enough. This study shows that there has been an increase in the number of patients with permanent hearing loss and chronic otitis media than in the first study.