Ear tube delay won’t hurt kids

Putting tubes in the eardrum to help drain a young child’s middle ear infection doesn’t appear to guard against developmental problems later in life.

Every year about 280,000 children younger than 3 have the tube surgery, which is designed to reduce the number of ear infections or drain middle ear fluid that might muffle sounds and hinder language development.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh conducted a study of nearly 400 children in 2001 that concluded that waiting to implant the tubes had no effect on a child’s performance on language and speech tests at age 3 or 4.

Even by age 6, children with the tubes implanted immediately scored no higher on intelligence, word, speech, behavior or emotion tests than children who got the tubes later, or not at all, according to updated findings published in the Aug. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.