Abstract
Background: Otological emergencies among children are very common in all communities. Swift recognition and prompt institution of management is very crucial to successful outcome of otological emergencies. Objectives: To determine the spectrum of pediatrics otological emergencies at Khartoum ENT hospital. Patients and methods: This is a cross-sectional; hospital based observational study conducted from September 2017 to May 2018. It included all pediatrics patients who presented to Khartoum ENT teaching hospital complaining of ear emergency. Pre coded pre tested questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was analyzed using Microsoft excel and SPSS version 22. Results: This study included 313 respondents. Their age was up to16 years with mean age (1.87 +/- 0.75) years. The main affected age group of these patients was 6-10 years old as 131 patients (41.9%). Male to female ratio was 1.26:1. The commonest presenting symptom was ear pain in 236 patients (48.9%), followed by ear discharge in 120 patients (24.8%); Those symptoms were common on the right ear (136 patients) representing 43.5%, followed by left ear symptoms in 131 patients (41.9%), while only 46 patients had bilateral ear complaint (14.7%). Regarding commonest diagnosis; acute otitis media was the commonest which seen in 177 patients (56.5%), foreign body in the external ear canal in 55 patients (17.6%), the least frequent diagnosis were mastoid abscess in 5 patients (1.6%) and frunculosis in 5 patients (1.6%). Conclusion: The study concluded that the most commonly affected age group 6-10 years, with slight male predominance. The commonest presenting symptom was ear pain followed by discharge. The commonest neuro-otological symptom associated with ear emergencies was fever. The commonest otological emergency was acute otitis media followed by foreign body ear.