Temporal bone pneumatization in cystic fibrosis patients.

Cystic fibrosis patients commonly have nasal polyps and sinusitis, but surprisingly are spared from an increased occurrence of otitis media. Twenty cystic fibrosis patients whose ages ranged from 13 to 26 years were studied. Only one of these patients had a history of otitis. Minimal temporal bone pneumatization, as determined by computed tomography, was used as an indicator of childhood otitis. The computed tomography had been done as part of the medical evaluation of their symptomatic paranasal sinusitis. On the average, pneumatization volume was larger for the cystic fibrosis patients than for the normal population (p = 0.033, Student's t-test). That is, these data indicate that cystic fibrosis patients had significantly less otitis than the normal population. Assuming that these cystic fibrosis patients are representative, the data may imply that the gene for good musculoskeletal eustachian differentiation is linked with the gene for cystic fibrosis. The data also imply that poor mucociliary transport does not necessarily induce otitis media.