Specifically, although inflammatory cytokines and bacteria were thought to be correlated with OPG and RANKL expression and bone destruction in cholesteatoma (Haruyama et al., 2010; Kalcioglu et al., 2018), no significant differences were observed in the expression of OPG and RANKL between the cholesteatoma cases with and without bacterial infections (Kalcioglu et al., 2018). Here, TNFSF11 is linked to cholesteatoma.