Investigation Of Tympanometric Norms Of Preschool Children In Chengdu

Objective: This study was designed to establish the tympanometric norms for preschool children in Chengdu. It also aims to investigate the effects of some factors on the results of immittance tests, such as age, gender, race. Methods: 132 preschool children (from 4 to 6 years old) were investigated. Norms were obtained from 223 ears. Single-frequency component tympanometry includes peak compensated static acoustic admittance(Y_tm), acoustic equivalent volume(V_ea), Tympanometric width(TW) and tympanometric peak pressure(TPP). Multi-frequency component tympanometry includes middle ear resonant frequency(RF) and Vanhuyse classification. The outcomes were compared with similar study in 1987(Margolis & Heller), significant statistic difference were found when Y_tm, V_ea, TW and TPP were compared.Results: The normative values of Y_tm, V_ea, TW and TPP in single-frenquency component tympanometry were significantly different between Chinese pre-school children and those in western country.Conclusion: Significant racial difference was demonstrated in single-frenquency component tympanometry, which indicates that it is veryimportant to build up our own immittance test norms for the pre-school Chinese children. The clinicians will benefit a lot from looking at both of the middle ear resonant frequency and Vanhuyse classification of the tympnograms since the two tests improve the sensitivity and specifity of tympanometry when diagnosing middle ear disorders.