eng Oriental Scientific Publishing Company Biomedical and Pharmacology Journal 0974-6242 2015-10-25 8 October Spl Edition 739 746 10.13005/bpj/777 4361 article Otitis media (OM) is a type of inflammatory and infectious diseases and a major cause of visits to health care systems worldwide. Otitis media with effusion (OME) is accumulation of fluid with high viscosity behind the intact tympanic membrane in the middle ear whose exact etiology is unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza in OME. This was an analytical epidemiological study conducted on 53 OME patients underwent myringotomy surgery and VT insertion. Middle ear fluid was sampled during the operation, and using PCR with specific primers, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza were assessed. Fifty-three patients including 30 males (56.6%) and 23 women (43.4%) with mean age of 3.98 ± 1.70 years were studied. The samples of 44 patients (83.0%) contained RSV and the remaining 9 patients (17.0%) showed no RSV. This difference was statistically significant (P: 0.001). Five samples (7.5%) contained influenza virus, whereas 49 samples (92.5%) showed no influenza virus and this difference was statistically significant (P: 0.001). Our findings showed that RSV plays an important role in the pathogenesis of the disease, whereas influenza virus does not have an important place in the future studies. https://biomedpharmajournal.org/vol8octoberspledition/investigating-the-role-of-respiratory-syncytial-virus-and-influenza-virus-in-patients-with-otitis-media-with-effusion/ Otitis media with effusion Respiratory syncytial virus Influenza virus Pathogenesis