A Short Wave Infrared Otoscope for Objective Middle Ear Effusion Diagnosis

Millions of children worldwide obtain an antibiotic prescription for treatment of an ear infection (otitis media), and this has been ranked in the top five conditions for direct medical spending for those under 18 years of age. Otitis media is responsible for the vast majority of tympanostomy tube placements, the most common surgical procedure in the US in children with over 600,000 cases per year. Otitis media is inadequately diagnosed and consequently mistreated. Diagnosis is estimated at 51% for US pediatricians, with over-diagnosis occurring 26% of the time. Accurate diagnosis of otitis media can be an issue as it requires a physician to differentiate between various forms of middle ear conditions. The standard of care (SOC) for diagnosing otitis media is pneumotoscopy by eye or using a white light video otoscope. This technique has advantages, but it suffers from subjective interpretations, especially in the hands of inexperienced practitioners. Our team developed the first otoscope sensitive to short wave infrared (SWIR) light for objective identification of middle ear effusions. The SWIR otoscope collects both the information normally seen by a white light otoscope, and SWIR light. The goal with this research is to evaluate the SWIR otoscope against the white light otoscope currently used as the standard of care diagnostic tool in clinic settings. Patients who are undergoing a tympanostomy tube placement procedure will be eligible for this study. In the operating room, imaging will be performed with the SWIR otoscope, which will gather images of both SWIR data and white light data simultaneously. As part of SOC, patients who come into the operating room for the procedure will have removal of middle ear fluid as part of the procedure. The physician performing the procedure will take note of the presence or absence of middle ear fluid. A different physician and a computer program will analyze the images of the SWIR otoscope for presence or absence of middle ear fluid in the image. These results will be compared with the notes taken during the procedure regarding presence or absence of ear fluid.