ABSTRACT
A population-based survey of patients who had undergone surgery for chronic ear disease over the past 30 years in northern Finland revealed that the number of new surgical cases of both chronic suppurative otitis media and cholesteatoma has declined sharply after a peak in 1971-1974 and is now almost non-existent in contrast to the number of patients being operated on for chronic dry perforations, which has remained more or less the same. Most of the patients with chronic suppurative otitis media and cholesteatoma had had chronic ear trouble as early as the 1940s or 1950s. Moreover, if an active chronic otitis media developed in these cases, it started at a younger age than in cases with an onset after the 1950s. These facts may indicate that the decrease seen in this population is in close connection with the introduction of antimicrobials in the treatment of acute otitis media in the mid-1950s in the area.
