Secretory otitis media among day care and primary school children in Sohag district

Secretory otitis media [SOM] is a common otological disorder, that most of the time is left undiagnosed on account of unawareness and negligence in seeking early medical attention for trivial ailments. Untreated, it might end up in serious consequences in the form of poor speech and intellectual development and permanent anatomical abnormalities within middle ear cleft. Secretory otitis media [SOM] is very common among day care and primary school children but there were no previous community based studies conducted to show the prevalence of SOM among these children in Sohag governorate. A stratified random sample was taken from day care centers and primary school children in Sohag district according to the geographical distribution [urban or rural]. Randomly chosen classrooms from each selected day care centers and schools were selected. One thousand and twenty children of both groups were studied. 217 out of 1020 [21.3%] had SOM. 23% of children in urban schools had SOM comparing to 19.5% in rural schools. SOM is very common otological disease [21.3%] at age of 4 and 6 years. Prevalence of SOM is commoner in children in urban schools than those in rural schools

Outcome of different treatment modalities in preschool children with otitis media with effusion

The problem of otitis media with effusion [OME] in infants and young children is worldwide. Although medical treatment is tried first, many children do not respond to it. In this study, seventy preschool children with OME received medical treatment for 3 months; 52 of them do not respond and treated surgically. A group of the children with obstructive symptoms were treated by adenoidectomy alone while the remaining were treated by adenoidectomy and bilateral myringotomy with insertion of grommet tube in the left ear only. Those without obstructive symptoms were treated by bilateral myringotomy with insertion of grommet tube in the left ear only. Follow up for six months including clinical and tympanometric assessment was done. The results revealed that medical treatment was successful in 25.7% of patients. Removal of adenoids, when indicated, improves the outcome of treatment. The use of grommet tube is more beneficial than myringotomy alone