OBJECTIVEThis study was conducted to find out the ideal graft between septal cartilage and cortical mastoid bone in Farrior's type 3 tympanoplasty in cholesteatoma patients in terms of hearing improvement, graft status and recurrence rate of the disease after canal wall down mastoidectomy. METHODSThis randomized controlled trial was conducted in a tertiary care centre and the procedure and data collections were carried out for one and a half calendar year with effect from September 2007 and each case was followed up for 6 months. The data were entered and calculated statistically using SPSS16 for windows. RESULTSThe study shows significant hearing improvement in both the groups. The tympanoplasty type 3 with cortical mastoid bone had air bone gap less than 20dB in 40% of patients. In septal cartilage, tympanoplasty group air bone gap less than 20dB was observed in 36.4%. Retraction of graft developed in 1(2.4%) out of 20 patients among cortical mastoid bone tympanoplasty group. Among 22 patients of septal cartilage tympanoplasty type 3, 2(4.8%) patients had cartilage resorption and 3(7.1%) had graft displacement. Of the total 42 patients, 2(4.8%) developed recurrence of the disease. CONCLUSIONCholesteatoma management is controversial. Canal wall down mastoidectomy can reduce the recurrence of disease. The cortical mastoid bone and septal cartilage grafts can provide hearing improvement after tympanoplasty type 3. There is no significant difference in hearing improvement between the two grafts. KEYWORDSTympanoplasty, Cholesteatoma, Decibel (dB), Airbone Gap (ABG). HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:Singh TB, Singh ND, Lungleng N. "Tympanoplasty with septal cartilage and cortical mastoid bone in cholesteatoma patients