Consensus on Treatment of Obstructive Eustachian Tube Dysfunction With Balloon Eustachian Tuboplasty

Clinical Analysis of Ear Congestion after Balloon Eustachian Tuboplasty (BET) with or without Tympanostomy Tube Insertion

“…e absence of significance may be attributed to the small sample size included, which, therefore, requires further investigation. Moreover, surgical interventions are required for patients diagnosed with obstructive ETD after three months of conservative treatment without satisfactory results, and patients with levels I and II tympanic membrane retraction showed more favorable surgical effects, which is in line with the surgical standard recommended by the guidelines and related literature [14,19,20]: (1) presence of persistent ear congestion that interferes with daily life and cannot be relieved by conservative treatment within three months; levels I and II tympanic membrane retraction; and failure of tympanoplasty, reperforation, or beginning of tympanic membrane invagination. Additionally, as for the choice of surgery type, the patients without ear congestion in this study were treated with balloon dilatation alone, and the postoperative symptoms of the patients were considerably alleviated.…”

“…e ETDQ-7 score was developed by Plaza et al [14] based on standard methodology and is the only scoring system that has undergone clinical trials and validated for preliminary validity, with good sensitivity and specificity [26,27], so the use of the ETDQ-7 score for the assessment of patient condition in the present study was reliable. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine…”

“…Herein, the ETDQ-7, VAS, and Valsalva scores were significantly ameliorated, suggesting that BET is effective in relieving the ear congestion of patients after tympanostomy tube insertion. According to the consensus on BET, the above observation indicators are recommendable and credible [14]. Si et al [16] revealed that cartilage tympanoplasty combined with BET yielded a promising result in alleviating the symptoms of ear congestion in patients, and the effect remains stable after 2 years of follow-up.…”

“…erefore, for the diagnosis of obstructive ETD, a comprehensive evaluation of the following aspects is suggested [14,19]: medical history; otoscopic evaluation of the shape of the tympanic membrane and the tympanic chamber; exclusion of nasopharyngeal occupations and assessment of nasal cavity condition by nasopharyngoscopy (since obstructive ETD has been reported to be associated with sinusitis and allergic rhinitis [22,23]); an ETDQ-7 score of >14.5 points (it has been demonstrated [24] that the cutoff point for diagnosis of ETD is 14.5 points, with the sensitivity of 100% and the specificity of 100%); and tympanometry results (Parsel et al [25] suggested that the sensitivity of the type A curve in diagnosing ETD with mild symptoms is insufficient and ETDQ-7 score >2.1 in the presence of a type B or type C tympanogram could reach 99.0% in predicting ETD).…”

“…Patients with ear congestion as the main complaint after tympanostomy tube insertion, with symptoms persisting for over three months, with poor therapeutic effects after conservative medication, who were diagnosed with ETD confirmed by routine ear and nasopharyngeal endoscopy, pure tone audiometry, and tympanometry before operation [12][13][14] were included.…”