Observations on the pathology of chorda tympani nerve in temporal bone sections

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Abstract
The appearance of the chorda typani nerve was assessed in stained sections of human temporal bones exhibiting various degrees of chronic otitis media. The material consisted of 100 human temporal bones from a temporal bone collection. There were 15 ears with no evidence of middle ear disease and 75 with varying degrees of chronic suppurative otitis media. In those ears that were fully assessed, 15 showed no evidence of chronic suppurative otitis media. Both facial and chorda tympani nerves showed fairly consistent and comparable staining affinity. Of the 24 ears having mild otitis media, 21 had chorda tympani nerves which were histologically normal. Only 3 ears revealed pallor of the nerve and one of these had discontinuity of the nerve within the middle ear cavity. In the group showing more severe disease, 23 of 42 ears showed no obvious pallor of the chorda tympani nerve in the middle ear cleft. In the final group of 9 temporal bones from patients who had undergone mastoidectomy during life to eradicate disease, 8 revealed that the chorda tympani nerve was absent from the middle ear cleft.

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