While you're pretty much supposed to leave your earwax alone, sometimes it can cause serious problems. Doctors can dig it out, but using prescription or over-the-counter products to soften or loosen earwax is easier and less likely to damage the ear's delicate structures. Researchers in Texas shouldered the heavy burden of testing different products for removing earwax.

What the researchers wanted to know: What medication works best for removing earwax?

What they did: The researchers recruited volunteers with excessive amounts of earwax or earwax that had become impacted. The volunteers all worked for Alcon Research, the company that sponsored and carried out the study. Each of the 74 subjects was randomly assigned to get Cerumenex Eardrops, Murine Ear Drops, or a placebo—in this case, a saline solution. Each person lay on his or her side and had the medication put in the ear; after 15 minutes, clinic staff washed out the ear with lukewarm water, then repeated the medication and washing if necessary.

What they found: Neither of the medications was better than the placebo. Placebo cleared the ears of 42 percent of patients, Cerumenex worked on 30 percent, and Murine worked on only 15 percent. (Because of the relatively small sample sizes, none of those differences are statistically significant.)

What the study means to you: It appears that neither medication works better than the placebo. They also might have just chosen the wrong placebo—maybe saline solution is really good at softening earwax, and they should have compared the medications with plain water.

Caveats: The patient and the person evaluating the eardrums didn't know which product each patient got, but the person applying the product did, so this wasn't a completely blinded study.

Find out more: Read the National Library of Medicine's article on earwax blockage, complete with color diagrams.

Read the article: Roland, P.S. et al. "Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Evaluation of Cerumenex and Murine Earwax Removal Products." Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery. October 2004, Vol. 130, pp. 1175–1177.

Abstract online: http://archotol.ama-assn.org