Study of Adenoid Hypertrophy and Nasal Obstruction

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Adenoid hypertrophy is a significant cause of childhood morbidity. Enlarged adenoid leads to mouth breathing, snoring, sleep apnea, hyponasality, sinusitis, otitis media with effusion (OME), and abnormal facial development.(1) (Assement of middle ear)
Nasopharyngeal obstruction due to adenoid hypertrophy may directly obstruct the pharyngeal ostia of the auditory tube, 2 mechanical obstruction of the Eustachian tube may be an important factor to occuring OME. 3 However, recurrent or chronic infection in the adenoids without obstructive hypertrophy may also manifest as recurrent acute otitis media, persistent OME supporting the theory of adenoids being a reservoir of pathogenic organisms leading to tubal edema and malfunction.4
OME is a highly concurrent disease in young children with adenoid hypertrophy. However, young children are not capable of voicing their symptoms of hearing loss or the parents pay less attention of the child’s hearing change; some of them with adenoid hypertrophy have ME in spite of no complaint of the hearing loss, which may be neglected if no accurate procedures for the assessment of the middle ear function are done.
There is more information available on the influence of enlarged adenoids on tympanometry. In this article, we investigated the effects of adenoidal enlargement on middle ear pressure and tympanogram’s diagnostic efficacies for detecting OME in children, and thereby to recommend the assessments of middle ear functions essential in young patients with adenoid hypertrophy.
Materials and methods
This prospective study was approved by Hospital Research Ethics Board and written informed consent was obtained from the subjects. This study was performed on all the 56 cases of positively diagnose...

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... could exclude MEE. However, 6 ears in which the tympanic pressure was lesser than from -200 daPa correctly predicted the presence of MEE in our study. In addition, type C tracing tympanogram without acoustic stapedius reflex may have MEE as smiliar our results.
Much attention should be paid and be aware of a possible development of hearing loss in adenoid hypertrophy in young children even though without parental suspicion of hearing impairment. It is important to perform the middle ear examination and tympanometer for adenoid hypertrophy before surgery. If the preoperative assessment of the hearing level is not done, without informing the parents it may lead to unnecessary medical controversy. The otoscopy and tympanometry can make a more accurate diagnosis of pediatric OME in the adenoid hypertrophy children with/without parental suspicion of hearing impairment.

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