The Structure of Middle-Ear Mucosa

Overview

In collaboration with the Pathological Institute of the Faculty Hospital Brno theauthorssamples and evaluated 50 samples of middle-ear mucosa from such cadaverous bones,wherethe documentation had not indicated previous middle-ear pathology and no signs of previousoperation in the area of temporal bone or other apparent signs of ear pathology were evident. TheEustachian tube and the anterior part of middle-ear cavity is lined with cylindrical epithelium withcilia, which continues from the ciliary epithelium of nasal cavity and nasopharynx. In direction toprocessus mastoideus there was an apparent lowering and flattening of epithelium and the ciliadecreased in number, so that the posterior part of themiddle-ear cavity was linedwith a unilamelarcube epithelium and the pneumatized mastoideal processus contained a flat epithelium withoutcilia.The inner layer of the eardrum(stratummucosum)is formedby the cube epithelium.Glandularformations originate as a consequence of inflammatory processes affecting Eustachian tube andmiddle-ear mucosa. Basal cells lay upon the basal membrane, the intermediary cells forming a layerabove them. The superficial later ofmucosa if either formed by cells with cilia which do not containsecretion granules in their cytoplasm and therefore lack secretion activity, or by cells without ciliawithout secretion activity and cells with secretion activity.

Key words:
middle-ear mucosa, structure, cellular types, distribution.