What is Cholesteatoma? How is it managed? - Dr. Debasish Datta Majumder

This term cholesteatoma is a condition of the ear. As I mentioned in my first 2 questions about chronic infections of the ear or chronic suppurative otitis media where due to repeated infections of the ear, there is damage of the ear drum and the ear drum has a big hole, due to which the patient has repeated ear infections and also decreased hearing. Sometimes as a result of this chronic infection, there is a disease that develops in the middle ear, that is called as cholesteatoma, which is nothing but a pouch or dead cells and debris which is not malignant, but it has a destructive ability. It keeps on growing and it destroys the structures around it. So obviously it is not a very safe disease to have in your ear. If the patient is having recurrent foul smelling, sometimes blood stained ear discharge, please don’t ignore. Show your ENT specialist. There is a possibility that the patient is having cholesteatoma. Cholesteatoma cannot be cured medically. The only option is the surgical removal of the cholesteatoma. Removing the entire disease , the bone behind the ear is cleaned, the name of the surgery is called as modified radical mastoidectomy where we clean the entire bine from the ear clean from the disease and also we repair the hearing structures because as I told cholesteatoma is destructive in nature. It gradually erodes and destroys the structures around it. So sometimes the tiny structures in the ear which conducts sound also gets destroyed. The patienthear as much less compared to oral individual. So any patient having cholesteatoma, we have 2 targets in our treatment. First to eradicate the disease and the tiny hearing structures so that the patient is able to hear well. So the only treatment for cholesteatoma for any patient is surgical. Please don’t ignore because sometimes it may erode the boundary between the ear and the brain and the brain is very closely situated to the ear. If this cholesteatoma erodes the boundary between the ear and the brain and then there will be fatal complications like meningitis or brain abscess. So any patient having recurrent foul smelling red discharge , then immediately refer to an ENT specialist in the hospital and we will take care of it.