OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS To evaluate whether there is a genetic contribution to the development of narrow bony cochlear nerve canal and analyze the differences between unilateral and bilateral narrow bony cochlear nerve canal. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective review. METHODS Patients diagnosed with unilateral (n=44) or bilateral (n=13) sensorineural hearing loss with narrow bony cochlear nerve canal...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS The purpose of this study was to estimate the efficacy of superselective arterial chemoradiotherapy for locally advanced carcinomas of the external auditory canal and middle ear. STUDY DESIGN A retrospective study of clinical data for consecutive patients with locally advanced carcinomas of the external auditory canal and middle ear. METHODS Thirteen patients with loca...

A 56-year-old white male physician presented with a 5-year history of recurrent and intermittent hearing loss. The symptoms were predominantly right-sided and were increasing in frequency. Hearing loss was interfering with his ability to perform auscultatory examinations. He was able to temporarily restore hearing with the frequent use of carbamide peroxide drops. There was no history of prior ...

OBJECTIVE To compare the incidence and localization of residual cholesteatomas in canal wall down tympanoplasty with soft-wall reconstruction with results with the canal wall down and open tympanoplasty or canal wall up tympanoplasty. DESIGN Retrospective case-series study. SETTING Tertiary care university hospital. PATIENTS Eighty-five patients (85 ears) with fresh extensive cholesteatom...

The echidna is a monotreme a mammal that lay eggs and produces milk to nourish its young after hatching. Three short-beaked echidnas were used to study the morphology of their auditory canal. Three echidnas were dissected, two of them were x-rayed and samples for histological examination were taken from them before dissection. The echidna possesses neither an apparent ear pinna nor a tympanic b...

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to compare the hearing outcomes after surgery with reconstruction of the external auditory canal in combination with tympanoplasty, radiotherapy (RT) alone, and surgery followed by postoperative RT for T1 to 2N0M0 external auditory canal cancer. METHODS We performed a retrospective, single-institution review of consecutive patients with early-stage ext...

The innocuous transcutaneous stimulation of nerves supplying the outer ear has been demonstrated to be as effective as the invasive direct stimulation of the vagus nerve for the treatment of some neurological and nonneurological disturbances. Thus, the precise knowledge of external ear innervation is of maximal interest for the design of transcutaneous auricular nerve stimulation devices. We an...