The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Ear surgery `easier with endoscope'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 20, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Ear surgery `easier with endoscope'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, JULY 19. Encouraged by the results of the use of endoscopy for performing nose surgery, ENT surgeons are now looking to extend the success to ear surgery.

Surgeons say that the device offers greater flexibility in performing surgeries inside the ear. Compared to the bulky operating microscope, the endoscope offers a handier and less expensive alternative.

Some of the advantages of the angled endoscope are a larger field of view, early identification of vital structures to avoid injury during surgery and minimal extent of bone removal, says Otorhinolaryngology specialists.

According to ENT surgeons, the disadvantages of the endoscope such as having to keep one hand occupied during surgery could be overcome as clinical experience with the technique grew.

The Upgraded Institute of Otorhinolaryngology of the Madras Medical College recently organised a conference and live surgery workshop on endoscopic ear surgery. The two-day continuing medical education programme was supported by the Tamilnadu Dr. MGR Medical University.

A team of surgeons began a series of surgeries with a stapedectomy (or removal of one of three bones in the middle ear) using an endoscope. The surgery was performed on a 24-year-old patient with congenital deafness due to the hardening of the stapes. A tiny teflon piece is inducted into the ear to substitute for the stapes. The entire procedure was done under local anaesthesia.

A mastoidectomy, involving surgical removal of diseased bone, and a myringoplasty where infection-induced perforation in the ear drum is repaired by grafting a piece of membrane from the muscle above the ear were among the surgeries performed on the first day of the conference.

As many as 28 cases featuring a variety of medical conditions were shown live on a screen for the delegates and students. Though the surgeries were regularly done by ENT surgeons using the operating microscope, the workshop demonstrated that the procedures could be done better using an endoscope.

More than 250 practising ENT surgeons and 120 post-graduates attended the meet which was attended by T.V. Krishna Rao, president, Association of Otolaryngologists of India, James Pandian, Dean, Madras Medical College, D. Balasundharam, Director, Upgraded Institute of Otorhinolaryngology, and D. Balakrishnan, organising secretary.

As G. Sundhar Krishnan, one of the organisers noted, the potential of the endoscopic ear surgery was yet to be fully utilised, especially in rural areas where deafness was prevalent and one of the main objectives of the workshop was to popularise the use of the device.

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