Purulent otitis media in a child: symptoms, treatment methods

Puru­lent oti­tis media is an acute inflam­ma­to­ry process local­ized in the mid­dle ear region, accom­pa­nied by the accu­mu­la­tion of puru­lent exu­date in the tym­pan­ic cav­i­ty, a pro­nounced intox­i­ca­tion syn­drome. In some cas­es, such a pathol­o­gy can acquire a chron­ic, relaps­ing course. In severe sit­u­a­tions, in the absence of time­ly med­ical care, this dis­ease can lead to a num­ber of seri­ous com­pli­ca­tions, for exam­ple, to a sec­ondary lesion of intracra­nial struc­tures. Below we will talk about puru­lent oti­tis media in a child in terms of symp­toms and treat­ment.

Clinical picture with purulent otitis media in children

In the acute course of puru­lent oti­tis media, the symp­toms increase rapid­ly. First of all, there is intense pain in the ear. The pain syn­drome has a shoot­ing char­ac­ter, leads to anx­i­ety, cry­ing of the child. Against this back­ground, small chil­dren often refuse to eat, press their sore ear.

With­out fail, there is a gen­er­al intox­i­ca­tion syn­drome, rep­re­sent­ed by fever, weak­ness, chills, headache, and so on. Hear­ing loss is also not­ed.

In the future, with acute puru­lent oti­tis media, per­fo­ra­tion (rup­ture) of the eardrum often occurs. In this case, there is a decrease in body tem­per­a­ture, a decrease in pain. How­ev­er, puru­lent mass­es begin to stand out from the ear.

After the sub­si­dence of acute inflam­ma­to­ry phe­nom­e­na, scar­ring of the tym­pan­ic mem­brane occurs, hear­ing is grad­u­al­ly restored. On aver­age, this dis­ease in chil­dren lasts about two weeks.

In the chron­ic course of puru­lent oti­tis media, a per­sis­tent (non-over­grow­ing) per­fo­ra­tion appears in the tym­pan­ic mem­brane. In this case, symp­toms such as peri­od­ic or con­stant dis­charge of pus from the ear cav­i­ty, pro­gres­sive hear­ing loss occur. Dur­ing an exac­er­ba­tion, pain syn­drome, signs of intox­i­ca­tion join, sup­pu­ra­tion inten­si­fies.

Tactics of treatment of purulent otitis media in a child

The basis of the treat­ment of puru­lent oti­tis is antibac­te­r­i­al drugs, select­ed depend­ing on the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the pathogen. The most com­mon­ly used local forms of antibi­otics — in the form of ear drops, but some­times there is a need for sys­temic antibi­ot­ic ther­a­py.

With such a dis­ease, var­i­ous groups of antibac­te­r­i­al agents, for exam­ple, cephalosporins, can be used. The drug of choice is cef­dinir, the effec­tive­ness of which in the treat­ment of acute puru­lent oti­tis media in chil­dren was proven by sci­en­tists from the Repub­li­can Sci­en­tif­ic and Prac­ti­cal Cen­ter of Oto­laryn­gol­o­gy in a paper pub­lished in 2020.

In addi­tion, the treat­ment plan is sup­ple­ment­ed with ear drops con­tain­ing anti-inflam­ma­to­ry com­po­nents, local anes­thet­ics, and anti­his­t­a­mines.

It should be not­ed that before using any med­ica­tion, you should con­sult a spe­cial­ist. Self-med­ica­tion is strict­ly pro­hib­it­ed.

If the tym­pan­ic mem­brane does not rup­ture on its own, it is sur­gi­cal­ly pierced to ensure the out­flow of pus.

After the acute inflam­ma­to­ry process sub­sides, var­i­ous phys­io­ther­a­peu­tic pro­ce­dures are indi­cat­ed, for exam­ple, UHF ther­a­py.