OBJECTIVE: To
report acute and subacute consequences of
blast injury to the
ear from terrorists' bombings experienced from Yala Provincial
Hospital , Southern
Thailand STUDY
DESIGN: Retrospective chart
review was done on 54
patients who suffered otologic
injuries from bombing attacks in Yala Province from January to May 2005. Only 33
patients who had complete otologic and audiologic examination with a 3-month follow-up were studied. MATERIAL AND
METHOD: The
ear symptoms, the size of
tympanic membrane perforation , degree of
hearing loss at first examination within 30 days after
injuries were recorded. After a 3-month follow-up, the rate of
spontaneous healing , rate of operation needed and long-term
complications including
hearing loss were analyzed.
RESULTS: The two most common initial symptoms were
hearing loss (72.73%) and
tinnitus (66.67%).
Tympanic membrane perforations were encountered in 31
ears of 22 out of 33
patients .
Spontaneous healing occurred in 23
ears (74.19%) with the highest
incidence in small perforations (size < 50%). All healings occurred within 8 weeks.
Tympanoplasty was done on the
rest , except one
patient . Eight
patients (24.24%) had
sensorineural hearing loss without
tympanic membrane perforation . They still have
sensorineural hearing loss , which is rather mild and typically
affects in high tone with five of this group having normal
hearing in
speech range. Eleven
patients from the
tympanic membrane perforation group still have
mixed hearing loss , which were also mostly mild.
CONCLUSION: Patients with aural symptoms after a
blast injury need thorough otologic and audiological examination. The
spontaneous healing of
tympanic membrane perforation from
explosive injury was relatively high (74.19%) after an 8-week follow-up, only 8/31
ears required surgical repair. At 3-months follow-up, more than two-thirds of the
patients still had residual
hearing loss , which was rather mild and affected mainly in high tone.