The Swedish Quality Register for Ear Surgery

The Swedish Quality Register for Ear surgery (SwedEar) (former Quality Registry for Myringo- and Ossiculoplasty (QRMO)) is a national register for ear surgery, and is one of nine officially authorized national registers for Ear, Nose and Throat diseases. The register is independent of the National Board of Health and Welfare, to which the numbers of surgical procedures performed are mandatory reported.

A first draft of the registrer was founded in 1997 including only non-infected myringoplasties. The register was completely rebuilt in October 2013 including all myringoplasties, both fat graft and conventional, and ossiculoplasties. It was expanded to all chronic ear surgery, with or without cholesteatoma, in October 2020.

The medical data is collected per- and one year post-operatively and includes age, gender, surgical unit, indication for surgery, surgery type and techniques, preoperative infection and antibiotic treatment, preoperative hearing, and postoperative results such as hearing and complications. On a voluntary basis, the surgeon can add a pseudonym to be able to follow his/her results. A patient reported outcome measure (PROM) questionnaire is distributed to the patient about 1 year after surgery.

The participation in the register is voluntary, but all 33 units performing ear surgery in Sweden are included. The completeness in the register is around 80%. A completeness of 100% is not possible to obtain. One of the reasons is an imperative need for a Swedish social security number in order to be registered. This excludes individuals without a residence permit in Sweden.

The actual number of surgeries are updated continuously on the website of the Swedish Quality Register for Ear surgery. Open longitudinal results are presented on the website in Swedish as well as all publications originated from register data.

The register is administrated by a reference group on the behalf of the Swedish Association of Otorhinolaryngology Head- and Neck Surgery and financed by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.