Historic perspective of the acoustic otoscope.

The acoustic otoscope, originally called the acoustic reflectometer, was developed and produced by John and David Teele in the early 1980s. Since initial production, two different instrument versions have been developed by two separate companies. During the period of time in which the acoustic otoscope has been in production, there have been numerous studies reported with the two instrument versions. We provide a historic summary of the acoustic otoscope, summarize the pertinent studies, and address the contrasting results found in the literature.