[Acute mastoiditis: 16 clinical cases].

Sixteen cases of acute mastoiditis were treated between 1980 and 1984. In infants the course of the mastoiditis was brief. An external retroauricular swelling soon occurred that was generally due to edema without abscess formation, and medical treatment resulted in rapid healing. For the older children, the acute mastoiditis occurred on an acute otitis media that had already been present for some time. Abscess formation occurred in half of the cases, and a mastoidectomy was generally required. For the adult patients, there was always an underlying chronic ear pathology, either a cholesteatoma or a chronic benign middle ear infection. Surgical intervention was always required both for the treatment of the underlying pathology and for the acute associated infection.