Complications of the treatment of malignant external otitis.

Malignant external otitis is an aggressive, potentially lethal infection of the temporal bone, the treatment of which is often fraught with complications. Among the reasons for these complications are the difficulty in assessing the extent of this disease, the uncertainty in determining the point at which treatment can be terminated, the toxic nature of the antibiotics used, and the technical difficulty of performing any surgery on the infected tissues. In those patients who receive inadequate initial therapy, the further extension of the disease itself represents a complication of treatment.