BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Impacted cerumen is a common condition in adults. It is commonly believed that wearing hearing aids may increase the cerumen impaction, although no empirical evidence exist. The current study was aimed at studying if the use of hearing aids increase the likelihood of impaction of cerumen. SUBJECTS AND METHODS The study used retrospective design. The study sample incl...

OBJECTIVE This guideline provides evidence-based recommendations on managing cerumen impaction, defined as an accumulation of cerumen that causes symptoms, prevents assessment of the ear, or both. We recognize that the term "impaction" suggests that the ear canal is completely obstructed with cerumen and that our definition of cerumen impaction does not require a complete obstruction. However, ...

Objective This update of the 2008 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation cerumen impaction clinical practice guideline provides evidence-based recommendations on managing cerumen impaction. Cerumen impaction is defined as an accumulation of cerumen that causes symptoms, prevents assessment of the ear, or both. Changes from the prior guideline include a consumer adde...

Two types of glands are found in the outer third of the human earcanal: sebaceous glands that produce sebum and modified apocrine glands that produce apocrine sweat. Together, these substances make up cerumen, which serves to clean, lubricate, and, to some extent, protect the earcanal from bacteria and fungus. Excessive/impacted cerumen can cause tinnitus, vertigo, itching, pain, external otiti...

We performed a study to determine if cerumen in the ear canal causes significant hearing loss and to ascertain if there is any correlation between the amount of cerumen and the degree of hearing loss. Our study was conducted on 109 ears in 80 patients. The results indicated that impacted cerumen does cause a significant degree of conductive hearing loss. We found no significant correlation betw...

Cerumen impaction may cause hearing loss and pain. We investigated the prevalence of cerumen impaction in a population of outpatients with schizophrenia spectrum psychoses and studied factors contributing to it. As a part of our study--"The Living Conditions and Physical Health of Outpatients with Schizophrenia"--we performed a thorough medical examination including otoscopy of the ear canal fo...

Impacted cerumen is a widespread reason that patients visit Introduction: their health care providers. It effects approximately 2-6% of the general population and disproportionately impacts up to 65% of patients over 65. This study compared a new cerumen (earwax) removal product (Solution 1; EOS-002; a glycolic acid/bicarbonate formulation) versus two commercially available products (Solution 2...

BACKGROUND Propolis and cerumen are plant-derived products found in honeybees and stingless bees, respectively. Although propolis is an ancient folk medicine, the bioactivities of cerumen obtained from Australian native stingless bees (Tetragonula carbonaria) have not been widely studied. Therefore, we investigated selected anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of T. carbonaria cerumen....

PRINCIPLES Detection of elevated body temperature is critical in the early diagnosis of sepsis. Due to its convenience, infrared ear temperature measurement (IETM) has become the standard of care. Unfortunately, the limitations of this method are largely unexplored. OBJECTIVE To evaluate potential limitations of IETM, including the presence of cerumen on otoscopy, depth of penetration, side o...

This study was undertaken to determine how many cases of chronic tinnitus in a clinic population resulted from cerumen removal procedures and to summarize cerumen management methodologies and recommendations that will reduce the likelihood of such serious complications. Detailed questionnaires were mailed to 2400 consecutive patients (1704 male, 696 female; mean age, 53.3 +/- 11.8 years; age ra...