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The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System

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ABSTRACT

Many passengers experience discomfort during flight because of the effect of low humidity on the skin, eyes, throat, and nose. In this physiological study, we have investigated whether flight and low humidity also affect the tympanic membrane. From previous studies, a decrease in admittance of the tympanic membrane through drying might be expected to affect the buffering capacity of the middle ear and to disrupt automatic pressure regulation. This investigation involved an observational study onboard an aircraft combined with experiments in an environmental chamber, where the humidity could be controlled but could not be made to be as low as during flight. For the flight study, there was a linear relationship between the peak compensated static admittance of the tympanic membrane and relative humidity with a constant of proportionality of 0.00315 mmho/% relative humidity. The low humidity at cruise altitude (minimum 22.7 %) was associated with a mean decrease in admittance of about 20 % compared with measures in the airport. From the chamber study, we further found that a mean decrease in relative humidity of 23.4 % led to a significant decrease in mean admittance by 0.11 mmho [F(1,8) = 18.95, P = 0.002], a decrease of 9.4 %. The order of magnitude for the effect of humidity was similar for the flight and environmental chamber studies. We conclude that admittance changes during flight were likely to have been caused by the low humidity in the aircraft cabin and that these changes may affect the automatic pressure regulation of the middle ear during descent.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the participants who took part in the flight and environmental chamber studies. I would also like to thank British Midland Airways Limited (BMI) for giving permission to perform the flight experiments and for the assistance of the pilots and flight attendants during the study. I gratefully acknowledge the contribution from Ms. Meghna Patel who performed all the tympanometry for the aeroplane study. The study was funded by Aerbuddies Ltd. The author has no conflict of interests and had full editorial control for this paper. The author has not received any direct or indirect payment for performing these experiments and has no financial stake in the publication of the results.

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  1. School of Life and Health Sciences, Aston University, B4 7ET, Birmingham, UK

    Robert Peter Morse

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  1. Robert Peter Morse
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Correspondence to Robert Peter Morse.

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Morse, R.P. The Effect of Flying and Low Humidity on the Admittance of the Tympanic Membrane and Middle Ear System. JARO 14, 623–633 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-013-0408-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-013-0408-x

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