[Morphologic features of chronic otitis media in children].

Surgical material from the middle ear of 80 children at the age of 5 months to 15 years who suffered from chronic otitis media as well as 20 temporal bones of foetuses (24-36 weeks) and stillborns without ear diseases are studied. It is established that the character of topography and inflammation in the ear is associated with persistence of myxoid tissue and a low degree of differentiation in the retrotympanic regions of the middle ear this excluding the possibility of its functioning as a local immune barrier. Myxoid tissue is the main reactive substrate of purulent otoantritis and otomastoiditis in children of early age and, as mesenchymal tissue with angioplastic potencies, may be regarded as a conductor of a secondary cholesteatoma of the attico-antral region.