A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that persistent otitis media in young children does not cause developmental problems later in life. In the trial, which started in 1991, researchers followed a cohort of 241 children with otitis media. They found that early treatment with tympanostomy tubes made no difference to cognitive, academic or social development of children up to the age of 11 when compared to 6 months of watchful waiting. The final results were consistent with previous findings from the same children at the ages of 3, 4 and 6 years old. The trial started when there were serious concerns in the USA – but no real evidence – that persistent middle ear effusion could cause irreversible damage to a child's ability to learn. Placement of tympanostomy tubes became the second most common operation in the USA, after neonatal circumcision.
