This study investigated the common flora of human cerumen in patients with recurrent otitis externa, and subjects who had been operated on and had an open mastoidectomy cavity from chronic otitis media.

Cerumen samples were collected from three groups; group A (n = 20) consisted of patients with recurrent otitis externa, group B (n = 20) consisted of patients with an open cavity and group C (n = 30) consisted of healthy subjects.

The mean of the microbial count was 3.4 × 104 in group A, 3.08 × 104 in group B and 2.48 × 104 in group C. The most commonly isolated microorganism from the three groups was Staphylococcus epidermidis. No growth was observed in five cases (25 per cent) in group A and in three cases (10 per cent) in group C. In groupB antimicrobial growth was observed in all samples. In 46 (65 per cent) of the cerumen samples,the isolates were monomicrobial and 24 (35 per cent) of the cerumen samples were polymicrobial. The isolates were polymicrobial in 65 per cent of group A, 20 per cent in group B and 23.3 per cent in group C.

In the process of investigating the microbial flora of cerumen in all the three groups, microbial growth was observed from all the samples from patients with an open cavity, unlike the other groups, and it was determined that the group with recurrent external otitis had the most abundant microbial flora.