The following is a summary of “Health-related quality of life after otologic surgical treatment for chronic otitis media: systematic review,” published in the November 2023 issue of Neurology by Schouwenaar et al. 

Researchers performed a retrospective study to assess the impact of otologic surgery on Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in adult patients with chronic otitis media (COM).

The study conducted a literature search in PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science until May 2023. They focused on prospective research involving adult COM patients who underwent canal wall-up mastoidectomy, canal wall-down mastoidectomy, or tympanoplasty without mastoidectomy. They included studies that measured pre- and postoperative HRQoL and excluded questionnaire validation studies. They assessed study quality and bias using a Quality Assessment Tool for before-after studies without a control group. To analyze changes in HRQoL, they collected and presented pre- and postoperative HRQoL values and absolute changes in tables. The study also calculated Standardized Mean Differences (SMD) to facilitate comparisons.

Of the 720 studies initially identified, 16 met the review’s inclusion criteria. Various questionnaires were used in these studies, with five using CES and COMOT-15 and three using ZCMEI-21 and COMQ-12. All the studies showed statistically significant improvements in disease-specific HRQoL from pre- to postoperative assessments. No significant improvement was observed when using general HRQoL questionnaires. The calculated SMDs ranged from 0.24 to 6.99. The included studies had a range of risks of bias, with (n=10) having low risk and (n=6) having high risk. Study quality also varied, with (n=4) considered poor, (n=7) fair, and (n=5) good.

Future research should report preoperative chief symptoms and indications for surgery and establish MCIDs for HRQoL questionnaires to improve individual patient counseling.

Source: frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1268785/full