Assessment of hearing loss in tympanic membrane perforation at tertiary care hospitals

Objective: to evaluate and analyze the degree of deafness in tympanic membrane perforation based on size,site and duration of perforation. methods: 90 patients of both sex were selected randomly for this study with age 20 years and above randomly. size of tympanic membrane perforation was evaluated under operating microscope. patients were divided into three groups according to size; group i (small),group ii (medium),group iii (large). hearing loss was measured in each case with pure tone audiometry. results: deafness increased as the perforation size increased [i vs. ii (t - 3.23,p <0.01),ii vs. iii (t - 7.19,p < 0.001),i vs. iii (t - 10.88,p < 0.001)]. the degree of deafness was more in posterior quadrant perforation than anterior quadrant perforation but difference was not significant statistically (t - 1.25,p (0.05). the degree of deafness was more in malleolar perforation (t - 4.64,p < 0.01). deafness increased as the duration of disease increased [a vs. b (t - 3.01,p < 0.03),a vs. c (t - 6.49,p < 0.001),b vs. c.