A novel approach for classifying protruding ears is easy to calculate and implement in daily clinical practice

Abstract

The FATIMAE is easy to calculate and implement in daily clinical practice and establishes a practical approach for classification of protrusion, as well as for referral criteria for a specialised surgical consultation.

Digital diagnosis of protruding ears

“…The present work by Lopes‐Santos et al. makes a valuable and significant contribution to this area, as obtaining FATIMAE using an accurately captured and processed image, can efficiently evaluate and diagnose protruding ears and contribute to caring for these patients in a clinical setting. Hopefully, in the future, it can also be integrated into the decision‐making process for corrective otoplasty.…”

“…In this issue of Acta Paediatrica, Lopes‐Santos et al. describe and evaluate a very simple method for the digital diagnosis of protruding ears. This will assist and simplify the diagnostic process, as it can be based on an objectively measured index, instead of a subjective interpretation of a visual observation.…”

“…They established an approach for classifying protruding ears using anthropometric measurements obtained through iris‐based calibrated digital photographs. Unlike that model , the method proposed in this study does not require image calibration and uses ImageJ to process the very simple calculations. This method can, therefore, be used in current daily clinical practice with no relevant costs.…”

“…Furthermore, the paper by Lopes‐Santos et al. is the first study, to my knowledge, to include a prospective collection of frontal photographs of both patients with protruding ears and controls and provides a diagnostic method based on a simple digital index. In addition, the large sample of patients and controls validates the simple and reliable methodology presented by the authors.…”

“…As Lopes‐Santos et al. mentioned, the use of mobile applications to calculate the FATIMAE index can lead to its easy use in clinical practice. Therefore, the development and testing of specialised mobile software for this purpose will be an important area of research.…”