Prospective Tympanometry in 3-Year-Old Children: A Study of the Spontaneous Course of Tympanometry Types in a Nonselected Population

Parental suspicion of hearing loss in children with otitis media with effusion

“…Children with (1) otoscopic appearance of effusion/bubble or (2) an abnormal type B or type C tympanogram with no stapedial reflex presentation were referred as positive screens for follow-up. Table 1 describes the tympanogram types as defined by Fiellau-Nikolajsen and Lous [10]. Schoolchildren who passed the screening tests were regarded as negative screens and were randomly selected for follow-up.…”

Otitis media with effusion and hearing loss in children with Cornelia de Lange syndrome

“…First of all, it did not include any age-matched healthy controls because it was not designed to compare patients with CdLS with normal children. However, we do not think that this alters the meaningfulness of our results because: (a) the prevalence of otitis media with effusion in healthy infants and children has been widely reported in the literature as 2-30% depending on age and season, with a high rate of spontaneous resolution [Fiellau-Nikolajsen and Loud, 1979;Lous and Fiellau-Nikolajsen, 1981; American Academy of Pediatrics, 2004;Keles et al, 2004b]; (b) its prevalence among healthy Italian children is quite low (up to 20%), consistent over time [Bartolozzi et al, 1992;Marchisio et al, 1998], and periodically checked on a local basis; (c) the family meetings took place in late spring and early autumn, thus making seasonality irrelevant; (d) any allergic environment at the meetings was unlikely to influence the presence of middle ear effusion as most of our patients were not allergic and the findings obtained at the meetings were always confirmed in the hospital setting; and (e) interobserver variability was not a factor because pneumatic otoscopy was always performed by the same investigator (PM).…”

Which children would benefit most from tympanostomy tubes (grommets)? A personal evidence-based review

“…Results from epidemiological research on OME in North Jutland, Denmark, and in other countries have during the last 30 years will be presented [2][3][4][5], supplemented by prospective research on possible language and cognitive developmental disability after periods with OME [6][7][8][9], and results from a Danish consensus conference in 1987 [10], a systematic Cochrane review [11] and published review and guidelines [12,13] and studies [14][15][16] and some tracks forward will be pointed out.…”