The Relationship of Surgeon Handedness and Experience on Operative Duration and Hearing Improvement in Ipsilateral and Contralateral Otologic Surgeries
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32412/pjohns.v35i2.1505Keywords:
handedness, laterality, otologic surgical procedure, hearing, operative timesAbstract
ABSTRACT
Objective: To determine the relationship of the surgeon handedness and operative site laterality on operative duration and hearing improvement in otologic surgery, and to further explore whether this relationship may be related to surgeon experience.
Methods:
Design: Retrospective Cohort
Setting: Tertiary Private Teaching Hospital
Participants: Seventy-three (73) patients aged 18 to 65 years old who underwent primary ear surgery under general anesthesia between January 2016 and December 2019 were retrospectively divided into two groups: 39 contralateral and 34 ipsilateral. The operative durations and hearing improvements were compared using independent t-tests, with consideration of surgeon experience in years further stratifying patients.
Results: There was no significant difference in operative duration, t(71) = 1.14, p = .26, between the contralateral (M = 281.95 minutes, SD = 71.82) and ipsilateral (M = 261.15, SD = 79.26) groups. This same pattern was more pronounced among surgeons with 10+ years of experience although there was also no significant difference in operative time, t(33) = 1.31, p = .19 for both ipsilateral and contralateral surgeries There was no statistically significant difference, t(36) = -0.72, p = .47, in overall mean hearing gain among patients in the contralateral (M = +2.22 dB, SD = 10.54) and ipsilateral (M = +5.12 dB, SD = 14.26) groups. Although the difference was also not statistically significant, t(16) = -1.94, p = .07 for contralateral (M = 0.00, SD = 5.43) and ipsilateral (M = +7.95 dB, SD = 11.52) procedures performed by surgeons with experience of 10 years or more, a mean hearing gain of +7 dB in the ipsilateral group compared to 0 dB in the contralateral group was notable.
Conclusion: This study did not prove that regardless of surgeon experience, right-handed surgeons operating on the right ear and left-handed surgeons operating on the left ear have better ear surgery outcomes of operative duration and hearing improvement compared to right- handed surgeons operating on the left ear and left-handed surgeons operating on the right ear. Future studies on larger samples with more complete data may yet demonstrate this effect.
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Copyright transfer (all authors; where the work is not protected by a copyright act e.g. US federal employment at the time of manuscript preparation, and there is no copyright of which ownership can be transferred, a separate statement is hereby submitted by each concerned author). In consideration of the action taken by the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery in reviewing and editing this manuscript, I hereby assign, transfer and convey all rights, title and interest in the work, including copyright ownership, to the Philippine Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Inc. (PSOHNS) in the event that this work is published by the PSOHNS. In making this assignment of ownership, I understand that all accepted manuscripts become the permanent property of the PSOHNS and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the PSOHNS unless shared under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
