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External ear canal
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 07.07.2025
The external auditory canal (meatus acusticus externus), open on the outside, ends blindly in the depths, separated from the middle ear cavity by the eardrum. The length of the auditory canal in an adult is on average 35 mm, the diameter reaches 9 mm at the beginning and 6 mm at the narrowest point, where the cartilaginous external auditory canal turns into a bony one. The cartilaginous external auditory canal, which is a continuation of the auricle, has the appearance of a groove, open upwards, and makes up 1/5 of the length of the entire auditory canal. Two thirds of the external auditory canal have bony walls belonging to the temporal bone.
The auditory canal is S-shaped, mostly horizontally curved. To straighten it, the auricle should be pulled back and up when examining the eardrum. The auditory canal is lined with skin, which thins out and extends onto the eardrum. The skin covering the cartilaginous part of the auditory canal contains many sebaceous and a special kind of ceruminous glands (glandula ceruminosae), which produce earwax.
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