[Prevalence of chronic otitis media in the young male population in Turkey].

OBJECTIVES

In this study, we investigate the prevalence of chronic otitis media (COM) in young men.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

Twenty thousand consecutive young men (mean age 22 years) who were under election for high performance military positions were examined by two otolaryngologists in the Military Hospital, İzmir. The otologic examination findings were noted. We evaluated the patients who have tympanic membrane perforation, retraction, adhesion, myringosclerosis and the patients who had underwent surgery before.

RESULTS

Three-hundred and fifty-five young men (1.77%) had COM. Other findings were retraction (n=66; 0.33%), adhesion (n=36; 0.18%), myringosclerosis (n=720; 3.6%) and cerumen (n=3200; 16%). We found out that five (0.025%) of the cases had radical mastoidectomy surgery and 16 (0.08%) of them had tympanoplasty.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of COM in young men is 1.77%. Although our study has a limitation because all of our samples are young men, the study is unique due to its large sample size.