Résumé
Introduction: Chronic otitis media (COM) is a long standinginfection of a part or whole of the middle ear cleft. It is oneof the most common ear diseases encountered in developingcountries because of poor socioeconomic standards, poornutrition, lack of health education and unhygienic habits.Perforation of the tympanic membrane(TM) is sequelae ofotitis media and primarily results from middle-ear infection,trauma or iatrogenic causes. The major advantage of cartilagegraft is the stiffness and bradytrophic metabolism. Hence,the aim of the present study was to assess the tolerance,durability and performance of the graft with various thicknessand effectiveness and also to study the acoustic transfercharacteristics of cartilage plates.Material and Methods: This was a prospective study done inthe Department of ENT, GSL Medical College, Rajahmundryfrom September 2016 to august 2018. Patients who were 15-60years of age, with total and subtotal perforations, perforationswith tympanosclerotic plaques, Perforation with atrophicmembranes, Revision surgery for failed myringoplasty ortympanoplasty were selected for the study. Materials usedwere tragal and chonchal cartilage along with an underlaytype I tymponoplasty (primary or revision), using temporalisfascia, tragal cartilage of two different thicknesses was alsoperformed.Results: The graft survival rate with cartilage tympanoplastyis extremely satisfactory (95.2%). There was no significantdifference observed between the graft survival and type ofcartilage used. Hence, both tragal and conchal cartilage canbe used without any predisposition. The hearing results werebetter with cartilage tympanoplasty post-operatively (meanhearing gain 10.57dB).Conclusion: Cartilage is a valuable material for repairing aretracted tympanic membrane because of its stiffness, andcartilage will resist retraction.