A Study on 121 Cases with a Foreign Body in the External Auditory Canal, Including a Case of Aural Myiasis

A clinical study was conducted of 121 patients with a foreign body in the external auditory canal who were treated at Himeji St. Mary’s Hospital between January 2013 and December 2023, including one case of aural myiasis. The patients ranged in age from 1 to 92 years, but patients under 9 years of age represented the largest subgroup (34 cases, 28.1%). The average and median ages were 41.4 and 46 years, respectively; 75 patients were male and 46 were female. Among the 119 cases, excluding two cases in which the disease side was unknown, the foreign body was located on the left side in 51 cases (42.9%), on the right side in 61 cases (51.3%), and on both sides in 7 cases (5.9%). The foreign bodies included 20 living things (16.5%) and 101 non-living things (83.5%). Hair was the most common foreign body (n = 32; 26.4%), followed by insects (n = 20; 16.5%), sand and pebbles (n = 18; 14.9%), etc. Of the total, 33 cases (27.3%) visited the emergency department outside of business hours, and insects were the most common type of foreign body in these cases (n = 14). Of the 19 cases, except for one case whose onset time is unknown, the event occurred during the nighttime (6:00 pm to 6:00 am of the following day) in 14 cases (73.7%). Extraction of the foreign body was performed without anesthesia in 104 cases (86.0%), under local anesthesia in seven cases (5.8%), and under general anesthesia in 10 cases (8.3%).