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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2018 Mar 27;159(1):117–126. doi: 10.1177/0194599818766320

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Optical coherence tomography images demonstrating optical and microstructural differences of a normal ear and one with recurrent acute otitis media. (A) In cross section, a normal tympanic membrane (TM) is a thin, highly scattering ribbon of tissue approximately 100 µm thick. Near the light reflex, no other structures (eg, ossicles) appear in the middle ear cavity (MEC) behind the TM, and no signal is observed from the air-filled ear canal (EC). (B) This is in contrast to the TM from a subject with eustachian tube dysfunction and recurrent acute otitis media. A microbial infection–related structure is found adhered to the medial mucosal surface of the TM and within the MEC, having a thickness of ~350 µm. Digital otoscopy images are inset in each panel. White dashed lines indicate the physical location on the TM where the optical coherence tomography scan was taken.