On Friday 19 September at 14:00, Niels Højvang Holm defends his PhD dissertation entitled "From Symptoms to Solutions: Clinical Assessment, Imaging-Based Mechanisms, and Balloon Eustachian Tuboplasty in Adults with Eustachian Tube Dysfunction".

The Eustachian tube connects the middle ear to the pharynx and plays a role in regulating the air pressure in the middle ear. If the tube does not function adequately, negative pressure develops in the middle ear, causing symptoms such as ear pain, a feeling of pressure in the ear, reduced hearing, and, over time, cholesteatoma. The condition is common in children, making ventilation tube insertion the most frequent surgical procedure in paediatric patients. However, the condition may also occur in adults, where the lack of reliable diagnostic tools complicates diagnostic evaluation. Treatment of the condition in adults remains associated with considerable uncertainty.

In this PhD project, a Danish patient-reported questionnaire for use in these patients is presented, along with an analysis of its correlation with concurrent nasal and paranasal sinus disease. To investigate the underlying causes of the condition, 3 Tesla MRI scans and cone-beam CT images were fused to determine whether anatomical factors surrounding the tube play a decisive role in disease development. Furthermore, the effect of Balloon Eustachian tuboplasty was compared to ventilation tube insertion.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in Auditorium G206-145, Aarhus University Hospital. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Niels Højvang Holm
Mail: nielsholm@clin.au.dk
Phone: +45 28801688

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