Clinical manifestation and risk factors of children with cleft palate receiving repeated ventilating tube insertions for treatment of recurrent otitis media with effusion

Abstract

Conclusion: From this study, we suggest that male gender and complete type of cleft palate contribute to the recurrence of otitis media with effusion (OME) in the patients with cleft palate. Objectives: It is well known that children with cleft palate have a high prevalence of OME due to anatomic dysfunction of the eustachian tube. Our goal was to determine clinical manifestations and risk factors for children with cleft palate who received additional ventilating tube insertions after initial tube insertion during palatoplasty. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical and operation records of 213 patients who received ventilating tube insertion during palatoplasty from January 1993 to June 2006. The single-VT group (n = 140) included patients who had one ventilating tube insertion only, and the repeated-VT group (n = 73) included patients who received ventilating tube insertion repeatedly because of recurring chronic OME. We analyzed age, sex, types of cleft palate, preoperative tympanogram, characteristics of discharge during myringotomy, and duration of first ventilating tube in situ. Results: There were significant differences between the single- and repeated-VT groups in the rate of male patients (43.6 vs 72.6%), the rate of complete cleft palate (30.0 vs 61.6%) and incomplete cleft palate (61.4 vs 26.0%), the rate of preoperative type A tympanogram (30.0 vs 13.7%) and type B tympanogram (57.1 vs 75.3%), the proportion of discharge during myringotomy (72.1 vs 86.3%), and the mean indwelling period of the first ventilating tube (12.7 ± 9.6 vs 10.5 ± 6.5 months). In addition, sex and type of cleft palate were proved to affect the repetition of VT independently. However, when we performed multivariate analysis, only complete type of cleft palate and male gender showed significant differences between single- and repeated-VT groups.

Keywords::

• Risk factor
• palatoplasty
• myringotomy

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.