Population
Thirty-five children, 12 girls and 23 boys, whose indications for VT were selected according to SFORL recommendations (French ENT Society)(18), were included in this study (Figure 1).
Five children were excluded (4 for insufficient volume to allow analysis, 1 for blood contamination of the effusion). Of the 30 remaining children, a collection of 30 OME fluid samples was collected, 11 from ears with tympanic atrophy (preoperative examination under microscope done by two different examiners) and 19 from ears without tympanic atrophy (preoperative examination performed by two different examiners finding thinness from visual aspect under microscope).
For each patient, the effusion was collected from both ears prior to VT insertion but only one ear was analysed per child. In case of unilateral TM atrophy, only this sample was analysed. In the event of bilateral atrophy or healthy bilateral eardrum, the laterality of the effusion to be analysed was selected by a coin toss.
The study population ranged from 15 months to 10 years of age. Eighteen right ears and 12 left ears were selected. There were no differences (Chi-2 test with Prism’s Biostatgv and Graphpad software) between the two groups (healthy and atrophic eardrums) in gender (p=0.28), age (p=0.881), audiometric loss (p=0.299), or number of VT insertions in the history (p=0.62 with the chi2 test and with a Cramer V=0.01). The effusion was more mucous than serous in both groups (serous in 18% of cases in atrophic patients and 15% in healthy patients p=0.865).