“Tympanoplasty” surgery, applied in chronic middle ear problems is technically the cleaning of the inflammation in the middle ear and mastoid bone and repairing of the auditory system in the tympanic membrane (eardrum) and the middle ear.
The surgery may be performed just to repair the hole in the eardrum (myringoplasty), to repair the eardrum in addition to the bone system providing the sound transmission (tympanoplasty), to clean the inflammation that is progressed into mastoid bone (mastoidectomy) or may be the combination of all these operations (tympanomastoidectomy).
In situations, in which the problem is limited to the hole in the eardrum, if inflammations are not observed by just protecting the ear from water, if a significant hearing loss in not present and is hearing does not decrease in time, the operation that will be performed to close this hole generally eliminated the need for protecting the ear from water and increases the patient’s quality of life and prevent hearing loss that will occur in time and is performed according to the preference of the patient.
If recurrent ear discharge is observed though the ear is protected from water and there is no focus of infection present in the nose and sinus region, closing of the hole in the eardrum is a medical necessity to increase the quality of life and also to prevent the progression of hearing loss and the formation of complications related to the inflammation. In patients with significant hearing loss, the problems of the bones that transmit the sound should be repaired during the same operation if possible, however, if it is not possible to correct, then the sound transmission system should be repaired by using various surgical techniques, cartilage, bone grafts or middle ear prostheses.
If an inflammation called cholesteatoma, found in the middle ear and mastoid bone, progressing by dissolving bone is detected, this inflammation has to be cleaned as soon as possible with surgery. In patients with cholesteatoma, protection or reparation of the auditory system is the secondary goal; the primary goal is to clean the inflammation before allowing the formation of facial palsy, hearing loss originating from inner ear or intracranial complications (meningitis, brain abscess, etc.).
