Incidence of Otitis Media in Preterm Infants

Abstract

Objectives:

1) Determine if objective tympanometry findings correlate with the subjective endoscopy finding in diagnosing middle ear disease (AOM or OME) in premature infants. 2) Determine if the incidence of middle ear disease increases with lower gestational weight in premature infants.

Methods:

Our prospective study includes 76 preterm infants, (< 36wks) admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Harper Hospital. Endoscopic otoscopy and tympanometry were performed to detect the presence of otitis media within the first 4 days of birth. The Fisher exact test was used for statistical analysis.

Results:

1) 44 ears had normal otoendoscopic findings, of which 35 had normal tympanometry findings (79.54 %). 63 ears had middle ear disease, of which 48 showed abnormal reading on tympanometry (76.19 %). 2) 26 babies weighed less than 1300 grams at birth (average gestational age 26.99 weeks), 23 of which had middle ear disease on otoendoscopy. 25 babies weighed more than 1300 grams (average gestational age 31.85 weeks), 12 of which had middle ear disease on otoendoscopy. A P value of 0.0025 suggests a significant correlation between low birth weight and middle ear disease.

Conclusions:

We demonstrate that endoscopic otoscopy technique correlates with objective tympanometry data, although there are several limitations to comparing these techniques. We provide evidence that the incidence of otitis media in LBW preterm infants is higher based on otoendoscopy.