Ear Bleeding Post-Trauma/Surgery

Overview

A practical and academic on-call approach to bleeding from the ear after trauma or otologic surgery. Otorrhagia is not simply “blood in the canal.” It may be a superficial external auditory canal laceration, but it may also be the first visible sign of temporal bone fracture, basilar skull fracture, CSF otorrhea, facial nerve injury, labyrinthine trauma, ossicular disruption, auricular hematoma, or a postoperative surgical complication. The on-call rule is simple: do not irrigate, do not blindly pack, do not perform pneumatic otoscopy, and do not assume the bleeding is superficial until the trauma mechanism, consciousness...