A team of surgeons at Apollo Speciality Hospital OMR performed a first of its kind, rare surgery on a 54-year-old man, who was suffering from a condition where a part of his brain was oozing out through a hole in the ear.

The patient was suffering from severe periodical headaches and right ear pain/block for the past one year. Though he visited several hospitals, the reason for his head or ear ache could not be diagnosed. One of the hospitals even performed a tympanomastoidectomy for Right Chronic Otitis media considering this as an ear infection. 

Few months later, he started developing further complications, including a clear watery discharge from his right ear, besides the persistent headache. When he came to Apollo, on investigation Dr Krishnakumar, HOD, ENT, Apollo Speciality Hospitals identified a pink, pulsatile, soft, insensitive mass, which did not bleed on touch filling the external
auditory canal.

A CT scan and a Brain MRI revealed a huge defect(hole) in the upper wall of the inner ear (right side) through which a small portion of the brain’s temporal lobe was prolapsing out. Dr Krishnakumar and Dr Joy Varghese, Senior Consultant, Neurosurgeon and Interventionalist, performed a procedure to close the defect (hole) in the ear’s acoustic canal containing the brain tissue that was exposed.

Dr Joy opened/removed a small piece of the skull and peeled out the inner softer portion of the skull (the hard part was replaced from where it was removed from) and used it to seal the hole (10 mm x 6 mm) in the ear after removing the prolapsed part of the brain. Dr Krishnakumar meticulously removed the prolapsed brain tissue and sealed the defect from below.

Talking to reporters on December 17, Dr Krishnakumar said it was an eight-hour complicated surgery that saved the patient. ''Such occurrence is incredibly rare in adults, but the tough membrane around that part of the brain can occasionally rupture under pressure'', he added. The cause of hole in his ear might have been a result of an accident that the patient met 10 years ago or even a prolonged ear infection. ''If left untreated the patient might have had sequence of seizures and eventually collapsed'', he said.