Preservation of Facial Nerve in Surgery of First Branchial Cleft Anomaly: Five Cases of Duplicated External Ear Canal

We report five cases of duplicated external ear canal with especialattention to its histology and surgical care of facialnerve for their complete resection. these five patients wereselected from 50 cases of first bronchial cleft anomalies includingatretic external ear canals, preauricular fistula, cystand sinuses. the characteristic histopathology and clinical featuressuch as external opening around the auricle and upperneck above the level of the hyoid bone were not observed inother patients. there were no other abnormal ities in the realexternal ear canal (eec) and auricle. three of them were connectedto the natural eec with an opening, hence producingear discharges. histologic appearances of well formed canalincluded a circumferential epithelial lined up and canal consistingof stratified squamous epithelium with skin adnexes. aremarkable cartilaginous skeleton (type '2 of first branchialcleft anomaly according to work's classifications) was alsoobserved. all of them were treated surgically, with preservationof the facial nerve and excising the superficial parotidgland along with the ductal opening and the tract.