A Comparative Study on Management of Acute Otitis Externa with and Without Oral Antibiotics in a Tertiary Care Centre, Maduranthagam.

Acute otitis externa also called as "Swimmers ear" is commonly seen in all age groups. It is a very common condition, severely painful, characterised by otalgia, otorrhoea, conductive hearing loss and an oedematous ear canal. There is dearth of evidence based treatment guidelines leading to difference of opinion in its treatment particularly in the usage of systemic antibiotics and local antibiotics. To evaluate the clinical efficacy of oral antibiotics in two different protocols in treatment of acute otitis externa. A total of 80 patients with clinically diagnosed otitis externa were included into the study. Group A treated with systemic antibiotics and Group B without antibiotics based on Senturia grading. Response to the treatment was assessed with otoscopic finding and visual analogue scale. Standard analysis was performed with the statistical p value of less than 0.05 which is considered as significant. Group A treated with oral antibiotics had better improvement of the VAS scores in S2b and S2c grades when compared with Group B. However, there was no significant difference in both groups with S1 and S2a grades with or without antibiotics. Oral antibiotics are effective only in cases with severe odema and higher grades of AOE. In cases with initial or milder to moderate AOE the role of antibiotics is still doubtful and hence use of antibiotics to be considered cautiously in this antibiotic resistance era. A combination of good local treatment and IG wicks can produce almost similar results without antibiotics except in severe odematous AOE cases. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12070-024-04634-7.