Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 16, 2015; 3(3): 310-317
Published online Mar 16, 2015. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v3.i3.310
Endoscopic ear surgery: A case series and first United Kingdom experience
Hala Kanona, Jagdeep Singh Virk, Anthony Owa
Hala Kanona, Jagdeep Singh Virk, Anthony Owa, ENT Department, Queen’s Hospital, RM7 0AG Romford, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this work.
Ethics approval: Ethical approval was not deemed necessary by the Queen’s Hospital board as this surgery is already in use by the senior surgeon.
Informed consent: All patients gave informed consent prior to study inclusion.
Conflict-of-interest: No conflicting interests for all authors.
Data sharing: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from corresponding author at above email address. Participants consented to study inclusion. Consent was not obtained for data sharing but the presented data are all anonymised and risk of identification is very low.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ms Hala Kanona, MRCS, MRCS (ENT), ENT Department, Queen’s Hospital, Rom Valley Way, RM7 0AG Romford, United Kingdom. hkanona@yahoo.co.uk
Telephone: +44-07-792001863
Received: October 23, 2014
Peer-review started: October 24, 2014
First decision: December 12, 2014
Revised: January 1, 2015
Accepted: January 15, 2015
Article in press: January 19, 2015
Published online: March 16, 2015
Abstract

AIM: To present the United Kingdom’s first case series of 70 otological cases of endoscopic and non-endoscopic ear surgeries.

METHODS: Prospective case series incorporating a range of endoscopic procedures performed using a 4 mm, 18 cm rigid endoscope, performed by a single surgeon at a single centre. Primary outcome measures included mean average pre and post-operative air-bone gap hearing thresholds and duration of surgery.

RESULTS: Thirty-eight patients underwent endoscopic assisted ear surgery and 32 underwent non-endoscopic assisted ear surgery. In both surgical groups, there was a significant difference between pre and post-operative mean air-bone gaps (P = 0.02). Mean operating time was comparable between both groups. Eight patients developed post-operative complications.

CONCLUSION: Endoscopic ear surgery can be performed safely in a range of otological procedures. This has the potential to become a well-established surgical option for middle ear surgery in the near future. Advantages and limitations are discussed.

Keywords: Endoscopic, Mastoid, Surgery, Imaging, Otology, Cholesteatoma

Core tip: The role of endoscopic ear surgery is yet to be properly established but as more otologists adopt this technique, its role will become much more clearly defined and may lead to widespread use based upon positive outcomes for surgery. As with every new surgical technique, a learning curve must first be overcome before reliable conclusions can be drawn about its use. Our series has shown the benefits of using this technique in limited cholesteatoma disease and in providing a good view during revision mastoid surgery with simple pathology.