Vol. 93 No.11 November 2000
Diagnosis and Treatment of Patulous Eustachian Tube
Toshimitsu Kobayashi (Nagasaki University)
The diagnosis and treatment of
patulous eustachian tube were discussed with review of the literature. In
addition, some new findings from the author’s group related to this difficult
disorder were presented.
We have used 3-dimensional reconstruction
of the computed tomography (3D-CT) of the eustachian tube lumen to detect very
severe cases of the patulous eustachian tube. The new treatment of the
intractable patulous eustachian tube developed by us, transtympanic plugging of
the eustachian tube with a specially designed silicone plug, was found very
useful to the cases in which various conservative treatment had been
ineffective.