Impact of Eustachian tube function on long-term recovery
Patients in S1 was divided into two subgroups according to the ETF score (ETS) with the cutoff point of 7. Eleven subjects with ETS≤7 were in Subgroup1(Sub1) and the rest with ETS>7 were in Subgroup2(Sub2). Sub1 and Sub2 were statistically different in post-surgery PTA (p =0.036<0.05), PTAI(p =0.0012<0.05) and ABGI(p =0.037<0.05) by t-test (Figure5 and S3). For Sub2, the mean post-surgery PTA, ABG, ABI and PTAI were 28.5dB HL, 19dB, 31.50dB and 36dB and for Sub1, 46.5dB HL, 30.56dB, 17.22dB and 10dB respectively. The PTAI in Sub1 was 26dB smaller than that of Sub2, and the ABG in Sub1 was 27.5dB higher than that of Sub2 (Figure6A).
For Sub1, there was no clear linear relation between post-surgery PTA and intra-fs-ABR (p =0.47>0.05), the PTAI and fs-ABRI (p >0.99). For Sub2, PTA=3.22*intra-fs-ABR-162.7 withr =0.65 (p =0.042<0.05) (Figure5B); PTAI=1.6*fs-ABRI+12.48 with r =0.77 (p =.0407<0.05) (Figure5C).