Hystology findings' correlation between the ossicular chain in the transoperative and cholesteatomas.

Unlabelled: Chronic otitis media is hystopathologycaly defined as the presence of irreversible inflammatory tissue changes in the middle ear. Ossicular lesions represent the most prevalent change.

Aim: to correlate the degree of ossicular chain changes seen during surgery with the inflammatory histological degree and the thickness of the cholesteatoma perimatrix.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study.

Methods: Seventy-one descriptions of surgeries done in patients submitted to tympanomastoydectomy were reviewed. Cholesteatoma were collected and fixed in 10% formaldehyde. Two slides were made for each cholesteatoma, one stained with HE and another with picrossirius. Images were obtained from light microscopy and digitally processed and "blindly" analyzed using Image Pro-Plus Software. For statistical analysis we used Spearman's coefficient. Differences were considered statistically significant if P< or =0.05.

Results: the ossicular chain was involved in 65 cases. The incus was the most frequently affected bone, followed by the stapes and the malleus. When the Spearman's coefficient was employed considering ossicular chain change degree with patient's age by the time of surgery, perimatrix thickness and histological degree of inflammation, correlations were not established.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate that ossicular chain changes are practically universal when a cholesteatoma is present. We didn't find correlations related with bone erosion and cholesteatoma's histological findings.