An infant case of delayed conductive hearing loss following head trauma

Summary 

We present here a rare infant case of delayed traumatic conductive hearing loss. A 12-year-old boy, who had suffered head trauma 6 years previously, visited our hospital complaining of progressive left hearing loss. A horizontal fracture line was observed in the posterior–superior quadrant of the left bony external auditory canal. Pure-tone audiometry revealed combined hearing loss with increasing air-bone gap in the middle- and low-tone ranges compared with 3 years previously. Exploratory tympanotomy revealed that the head of the malleus was fixed to the bony wall of the epitympanum, and the patient's hearing was successfully improved by ossiculoplasty.

Keywords: Traumatic conductive hearing loss, Ossicular fixation, Exploratory tympanotomy