What medical experts at Rochester Regional Health are calling a groundbreaking study calls for reassessing the need for ear tube surgery in young children.
The results of that research have just been published in an article in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Michael Pichichero is director of the Rochester General Hospital Research Institute.
He said the decade-long study shows that 90% of the children who get ear tubes due to ear infections, would have seen those infections stop by the time the decision is made to do the surgery.
“So, all these years for decades, doctors and parents thought that when the tubes were put in, and the ear infections stop, it was because of the tubes,” said Pichichero. “Our study shows they were going to stop anyway, the child had outgrown their ear infections, and the tubes were really not necessary.”
Pichichero said this study could help change the conversation about when ear tube surgery is needed in young children.
“Probably the recommendation for ear tube surgery because of repeated ear infections will be changed to a much more stringent criteria than currently exists,” said Pichichero.
He noted that about 500,000 children a year, between the ages of 1 and 3, receive ear tube surgery in the U.S. at an annual cost exceeding $1 billion a year.
