Background: Despite different etiologies, chronic otitis media involves the damaging and restructuring of bone tissue. The inflammatory process destroys elements of the ossicular chain, and bone lesions may appear that allow the development of otogenous complications.
Aims/objectives: A correlation between the degree of damage to the ossicular chain as well as the bony walls of the middle ear and the type of chronic inflammatory lesions was sought. Destructive changes to bones were observed using scanning microscopy.
Material and methods: The removed damaged fragments of the ossicles were prepared for evaluation with a scanning microscope. Preparations were sputter-coated with a thin layer of gold and subsequently evaluated.
Results: Of 220 surgeries carried out in the discussed period, destruction of the middle ear bone walls, opening the way for the development of intracranial complications, was found in 27 patients. Most of them had ongoing chronic otitis media with granulation.
Conclusions: (1) Bone loss of the skull base was observed more frequently in patients with chronic otitis media with granulation than with cholesteatoma. (2) In chronic otitis media with cholesteatoma, damage to the ossicular chain was observed significantly more frequently than in the case of otitis media with granulation.
Keywords: bone defects; chronic otitis media; scanning electron microscopy.