Surfer's Ear

Abstract

It is well known that the bony stenosis of the external ear canal is common in professional divers. The same lesions are not rare in surfers and have been named “Surfer's ear”. In 1986 we examined 51 professional surfers (46% of the Japanese Professional Surfers) and 191 amateur surfers for surfer's ear and have already reported the data on the professionals. This paper is concerned mainly with amateurs, 52.7% of whom had some degree of stenosis of the external canal; 88.1% of these had early stage Surfer's ear. Surfer's ear tends to develop after 4 years of surfing and progresses through the 5th year. The bony stenosis of surfer's ear usually arises from the tym-pano-squamous suture (which is said to be the most likely site for osteoma) and the anterior and posterior wall of the meatus and progresses until the three parts fuse. We perform plastic surgery on the external meatus of 5 ears in 4 patients. Pathology and other points will be reported in future papers. © 1988, The Society of Practical Otolaryngology. All rights reserved.