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Ear tubes are used to ease frequent ear infections in kids, but evidence of their necessity — and benefit — is mixed.
WHEN A CHILD GETS an ear infection, it can be agony for the whole family. Prasanth Pattisapu knows this firsthand — he’s a father and a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and professor at The Ohio State University. During his daughter’s four ear infections, he said, “she was not sleeping, just screaming in pain.”
Ear infections are a common childhood diagnosis, and doctors usually either wait to see if they clear up without intervention or treat them with antibiotics. But every year, about half a million children in the United States undergo a more invasive treatment for frequent ear infections or persistent fluid in the middle ear: tympanostomy tubes, or ear tubes. Doctors surgically insert these tubes into the ear drums to help equalize pressure between the ear canal and the middle ear. It’s one of the most common outpatient surgeries performed on children in the United States.
Whether all those procedures are warranted, though, is up for debate. Ear tubes aren’t without risks, from bleeding to scarring to infection. And some research indicates that the procedure might not work better than less invasive alternatives. Given the difficulty examining the inner ear, some experts have also suggested that ailing children are sometimes diagnosed with ear infections even when no infection is present.
Citing concerns over the overuse of ear tube procedures, the American Academy of Otolaryngology published new ear tube guidelines for children in 2013. These were updated again in updated in 2022 to help providers determine when a patient will benefit from ear tubes. The current criteria, though, are “based on well-documented ear infections,” Pattisapu said. “But in truth, we rarely get well-documented ear infections.”
Michigan Voices for Better Health 