Otologic Injuries Secondary to Explosive Attack

The frequency of injuries secondary to terrorist attack explosion is globally increasing. Like any other country, our country experienced multiple suicide bombings in recent years. Otologic injuries may be observed after these kinds of attacks. Considering otologic complaints are well known medical results of explosion attacks, routine otologic evaluation in the first examining hospital—even in case of no relevant complaint- is crucial for establishing causal relation in following forensic medicine evaluation. In this study, 33 cases from 6 suicide bomber attacks in 4 different incidents that happened in Turkey were evaluated for otologic injuries. Two out of three patients were not evaluated for otologic injuries in their first hospital visit. It was considered that 8 cases had a loss of hearing and 9 cases had tympanic membrane rupture secondary to the explosion. Complaints such as hearing loss and tinnitus very often after a bomb attack, we saw that 22 of 33 included patients did not have an ear nose, and throat examination at the time of the incident. In this kind of attack, there can be various life-threatening injuries and therefore relatively less important evaluations such as ENT examination can often be overlooked.