Accidents & Violence, Author Interviews, Pediatrics / 10.05.2017
Stop Using Cotton Tip Applicators in Kids’ Ears
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kris Jatana, MD FAAP
Pediatric Otolaryngologist
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This study looked at a 21-year period – 1990 through 2010 – and focused on children younger than 18 years of age treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments for cotton tip applicator-related ear injuries. About 263,000 children were injured during the study period, which comes out to approximately 1000 injuries seen in emergency departments every month or 34 per day.
The majority of injuries occurred when cotton tip applicators were used to clean a child’s ear canal (73%), and most of those injuries occurred when a child was using a cotton tip applicator on their own (77%), or their parent was using the device (16%) to clean the ear canal. About two out of every three patients were younger than 8 years of age, and patients aged 0-3 years accounted for 40% of all injuries.
Surprisingly, the highest rate of injury was in children 0-3 years old. The most common injuries were foreign body sensation (30%), perforated ear drum (25%) and soft tissue injury (23%).
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