Abstract
In the Seidman 1 article “Anterior transcanal tympanoplasty: a novel technique to repair anterior perforation,” I was surprised by the presence of some inaccuracies, concerning mainly the references cited for the historical discussion, and would like to draw attention to these imprecisions. The concept of a surgical repair of the tympanic membrane (TM) with a skin graft is credited to Berthold in 1878, not in 1898 [printer's error]. Moritz's publication in 1950 does not precisely concern the history of the surgical closure of a TM perforation, but rather the covering and protection of the round window with a pedicle skin flap. This flap retains the functional flexibility of the window with the already-performed fenestrated window in the semicircular canal in cases of chronic middle ear infection.
Furthermore, I was disappointed to find “[undetermined language]” [printer's error] in the text of Moritz's reference 3, which, in fact, is in German, as is Zöllner's reference 4. In addition, Zöllner's 1951 publication does not specifically concern the surgical closure of TM perforation. As in Moritz's publication, the sound pressure transformation over the ossicular chain, which is necessary in type I tympanoplasty, was not realized. In 1952 (not in 1953), Wullstein 2 used the term “Tympanoplastik” to describe his various surgical techniques of reconstruction of the TM and the sound-conducting mechanism of the middle ear.
In German, common nouns have a capital, which are not found in the writings of all the references written in German (references 2, 5, and 6) [printer's errors]. For example, the journal for reference 2 is not “Wein Med Blätter” but “Wien Med Blätter.” This misspelling may seem insignificant, but “Wein” means wine and “Wien” means Vienna, the place where the journal was published. This mistake is also found in the publication information for a textbook cited as reference 1. All these small inaccuracies lead us to suppose that the author did not check the original references he used to write his brief historical introduction.
My second comment concerns the term “novel technique” found in the title. “Transcanal anterior tympanoplasty” described in this paper is not a novel technique. Tos 3 presented it in his 1993 textbook. Other otologists probably described it earlier than that.
I hope that these few comments will bring more light to the delightful history of tympanoplasty, notably type I.