Secretory otitis media in schoolchildren

摘要

In 1975, during my residency at the Ear-Nose-Throat department, Hjorring Hospital, I was surprised by the high number of cases of secretory otitis media (SOM) in the children in the residents' families. As far as I remember, ten of the 14 children had one or more episodes of SOM. At the same time I learned that, when a child had SOM, the normal procedure in the ENT department was to perform an adenoi-dectomy and myringotomy with insertion of tubes. These two observations gave me something to think about. One day at coffee the small talk was about this observation of discrepancy. I cannot remember who was present apart from my colleague Mogens Fiellau-Nikolajsen. The idea was raised of making an epidemiological study to answer the questions: How common is SOM in normal children? and: What is the rate of spontaneous remission of SOM? That was the beginning of the epidemiological middle ear studies in North Jutland. The idea was to carry out a purely observational study on normal children at fixed intervals.