Ibekwe Matilda Uju and Oghenekaro Ediriverere Nosa
Diseases of the ear are common in the ear, nose and throat clinic. In our environment, otologic diseas es such as chronic suppurative otitis media are seen m ore as a nuisance than as a disease that can have serious complications. This often leads to late pre sentations and therefore complications. Objective: To determine the pattern of otologic diseases seen in our environment so as to set up an up to date otologic practice with infrastructures for training and retraining of specialists. It was a retrospect ive study of all patients seen with otologic conditions in the university of Port Harcourt teaching hospit al (UPTH) Port Harcourt, Nigeria within the period of January 2007 and December 2011.patients` records were retrieved from the ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinic, ward and the theatre registers. These were analyzed for age, gender, diagnosis, treatment and o utcome. A total of 4,211 patients presented with ear diseases out of a total number of 20,200 cases seen in the ENT clinic, giving a prevalence of 20.8 5% patients with otologic diseases. There were 2,091 m ales and 2,120 females. The age range was 2months to 86 years with a mean age of 28.45 years. The age range 21-30years accounted for majority of the cases 1125(26.72%).otitis externa was the commonest condition seen 896(21.28%). Overall complication rate was 0.47% with post auricular abscess as the c ommonest complication seen 0.19%. The percentage of patients that had procedures done on them was 33 .29% and aural syringing was the most common procedure done 64.19%.There were only three mastoid ectomies done and no inner ear surgery was recorded. The commonest otologic disease seen in th is region was otitis externa followed by wax impaction and chronic suppurative otitis media. The re was in addition, appreciable number with varying forms of hearing impairment, therefore a need to es tablish a good otologic practice in this region wit h emphasis on training specialists in major ear surge ries and audiology is paramount.
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