Treatment of early recurrences of acute purulent otitis media; value of myringotomy.

The present investigation was carried out in order to study the efficacy of oral antibiotics (A) versus oral antibiotics plus acute myringotomy (B) in the treatment of early recurrences of acute purulent otitis media. Seventy-nine children with early recurrences (arisen within 4 weeks of a primary episode) were randomly allocated to one of the two treatment groups (A or B). Eleven of 41 (26.8%) children in group A, and 12/38 (31.6%) in group B had healed at 4 weeks (p greater than 0.1). Seventeen children of both groups had secretory otitis media at 4 weeks and new relapses had occurred in 13 children in group A and 9 in group B. No difference between the groups was noted regarding the number of otitis episodes during the next 5 months. Thus, acute myringotomy could not be proven to affect the clinical course of an early recurrence of acute purulent otitis media as compared with that after treatment with oral antibiotics alone.