Table I.

Clinical-radiological stages of malignant external otitis.

Stage I: infection of the external auditory canal and adjacent soft tissues with severe pain, with or without facial nerve paralysis.

Stage II: extension of infection with osteitis of skull base and temporal bone, or multiple cranial nerve neuropathies.

Stage III: intracranial extension with meningitis, epidural empyema, subdural empyema or brain abscess.