Middle Ear Epithelium In Chronic Ear Disease

Abstract

Thirteen chronically infected temporal bones were serially sectioned and stained to study the characteristics of any possible squamous epithelium. Non-cholesteatomatous epithelium is either immigrative or metaplastic in origin and the choles-teatomatous always immigrative. The metaplastic epithelium does not keratinize and the non-cholesteatomatons immigrative slightly keratinizing type may change into cholesteatomatous aggressive type only in the presence of at present unknown inductors.