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Margaretha L. Casselbrant, MD, PhD; Ellen M. Mandel, MD; Howard E. Rockette, PhD; Marcia Kurs-Lasky, MS; Patricia A. Fall, CRNP; Charles D. Bluestone, MD; Robert E. Ferrell, PhD

Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2004;130:273-278.

Objective  To determine the genetic component of time with middle ear effusion (MEE) and episodes of MEE and acute otitis media.

Design  Prospective twin/triplet cohort.

Setting  Research center at a tertiary pediatric hospital.

Participants  A total of 168 healthy same-sex twin and 7 same-sex triplet sets were recruited by age 2 months.

Interventions  Longitudinal assessment of middle ear status by pneumatic otoscopy and tympanometry at monthly evaluations, and at examinations during upper respiratory tract infections or symptoms of middle ear disease.

Outcome Measures  Proportion of time with MEE and episodes of acute otitis media and MEE.

Results  Of the 140 sets for which zygosity was obtained, 114 were followed up to age 3 years and 83 sets to age 5 years. The heritability estimate for proportion of time with MEE in the first 5 years of life was 0.72 (P<.001). The correlation of proportion of time with MEE between children within a set was significantly higher in monozygotic sets (0.65-0.77) than in dizygotic sets (0.31-0.39) for each year to age 3 years. In the fourth and fifth years of life, the correlations decreased in both monozygotic and dizygotic twin sets.

Conclusions  Findings for the first 2 years of follow-up have been previously published and indicate a strong genetic component to the proportion of time with MEE. In the present report, which details the entire 5-year follow-up, the effect of this component appears to attenuate after the third year but its cumulative effect remains significant after 5 years.

From the Department of Otolaryngology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (Drs Casselbrant, Mandel, and Bluestone); the Department of Pediatric Otolaryngology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh (Drs Casselbrant, Mandel, and Bluestone, and Ms Fall); and the Departments of Biostatistics (Dr Rockette and Ms Kurs-Lasky) and Human Genetics (Dr Ferrell), University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, Pittsburgh, Pa. The authors have no relevant financial interest in this article.

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