The ear is a complex organ that can be affected by various pathologies that are still fairly misunderstood. This work tests the possibilities of studying the ear and its pathologies using a virtual environment and thus bypassing expensive and time-consuming clinical trial. A previous validated finite element model of the middle ear was employed to study two pathological states of the middle ear...

In the absence of any acute otological symptoms including pain and temperature, a middle ear effusion in association with hearing loss has been designated by various names, i.e. catarrhal otitis, exudation otitis, serous otitis, nonsuppurative otitis, glue ear, and currently the most fashionable terms, otitis media with effusion and secretory otitis media. A middle ear effusion without inflamma...

Middle ear infections are common in children, and delay in diagnosis and treatment may result in complications such as delays in speech and language development and deafness. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and care seeking behaviour for middle ear infections in children under five years in Kigali city. We conducted a cross-sectional study among 810 children aged 6-59 mont...

Tympanosclerosis is an abnormal connective tissue reaction with hyaline degeneration and calcification in the tympanic membrane and submucosa of the middle ear. It is an irreversible, non-spesific end-result chronic inflammation or infection of the middle ear. The process occurs in the lamina propria layer of submucosa. A homogenous mass takes place by thickening and fusion of the collagenous f...

Otitis media (OM), or middle ear inflammation, is the most common paediatric disease and leads to significant morbidity. Although understanding of underlying disease mechanisms is hampered by complex pathophysiology it is clear that epithelial abnormalities underpin the disease. There is currently a lack of a well-characterised in vitro model of the middle ear (ME) epithelium that replicates th...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS Ventilation of the chronically inflamed middle ear is a key outcome in functional middle ear surgery. Grommets eliminate middle ear effusion, but there is also evidence that they downregulate inflammation. The reason for this is not understood, but there is little to suggest alteration in eustachian tube ventilatory capacity. Previous work has shown that the Junbo mouse mo...

The position of testudines in vertebrate phylogeny is being re-evaluated. At present, testudine morphological and molecular data conflict when reconstructing phylogenetic relationships. Complicating matters, the ecological niche of stem testudines is ambiguous. To understand how turtles have evolved to hear in different environments, we examined middle ear morphology and scaling in most extant ...

For questions concerning ON-LINE CEs, call (866) 261-3558. Childhood ear infections consist of acute otitis media (AOM), otitis media with effusion (OME), and otitis externa (OE). AOM and OME have been defined in a clinical practice guideline developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American Academy of Family Physicians. In order to have a diagnosis of AOM, the patient must hav...

This work describes the design and optimization of three prototypes of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) capacitive accelerometer-based middle ear microphone. The microphone is intended for middle ear hearing aids as well as future fully implantable cochlear prosthesis. The analysis is done using COMSOL Multiphysics. The maximum applied acceleration was considered 1g. Human temporal bones a...

Middle ear barotrauma is one of the common complications of SCUBA diving representing acute otalgia, hearing loss, and bleeding. But occurrence of facial palsy is rare. Here we report a case of a 30-year-old navy diver suffered middle ear barotrauma with transient facial palsy after SCUBA diving. He felt difficulty in equalizing the pressure in middle ear with Valsalva maneuver during diving, a...