Clinic and Paraclinic of Middle Ear Tubeculosis in the National ENT Hospital of Hanoi-Vietnam in the period from 08/2018 to 08/2019

Background  Extrapulmonary tuberculosis is currently more and more in Vietnam, especially in the head and neck area with about 4-6%. Due to its very atypical clinic, middle ear tuberculosis is diagnosed very late, especially in the case notpresence of pulmonary tuberculosis. The aim of this study is define the clinical and bacteriological characteristics of middle ear tuberculosis.

Methods We conducted a retrospective study of 30 inpatients at the National ENT Hospital of Hanoi with the diagnosis of "middle ear tuberculosis" in the period from 08/2018 to 07/2019. Study Design is a transversal retrospective study.

Results Age distribution with an average of 33.4 years, the youngest patient is 2.5 years, the oldest 75 years old. The proportion of women is 85.6%. The time window from the first symptoms to diagnosis: 61% between 3 months to 5 years, under 1 month 9.7%. Clinical symptoms : ear pain: 66.6%, tinnitus: 55.7%, reduction of hearing: 61%, otorrhea: 14.3%, facial palsy 14.3%, cervical lymph nodes: 14.3%. Otoscopically, eardrum thickening with secretion appear in 50.6%. Audiologically, there are 58.7% combined SL-SE, 16.3% SL, 5 total haering loss and in one case normal. In biopsies, you should take as many exemples as you can.. In 3 cases 4x biopsies were performed.

Conclusion Middle ear tuberculosis is sometimes difficult to diagnose. In case of suspicion, a biopsy (also several times and several pieces) is recommended. The antituberculostatic therapy is nessercery. It should be noted that tuberkulostatika resistances are increasing.

Publication History

Article published online:
24 May 2022