Vol.101 No.4 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 101 No. 4 April 2008
A Case of Hearing Loss Due to Potassium Bromate
Ichiro Tojima and Masakazu Hanamitsu
(Kohka Public Hospital)
Mikio Suzuki
(University of the Ryukyus)
Jun Fukui, Hironori Sakurai and Takeshi Shimizu
(Shiga University of Medical Science)
Potassium bromate intoxication shows acute renal failure, hearing loss and neuropathy. We report a 56-year-old woman who drank a solution of cold wave neutralizer in a suicide attempt.
The patient showed severe renal failure, neuropathy and sensory neural hearing loss, but there was no vertigo or vestibular disorder. Early continuous hemodiafiltration (CHDF) after potassium bromate ingestion was effective for these symptoms. Slight improvement of renal failure and hearing loss, and complete improvement of neuropathy were confirmed on long-term evaluation. At present, dialysis is not required, and the patient can converse smoothly using a hearing aid.
We investigated 81 cases of bromate intoxication including the present case, reported in Japan up to 2006. Renal failure occurred in all cases, hearing loss and neuropathy were described in 56/65 (86％) and 21/21 (100％), respectively. These symptoms should be caused by the direct toxic effect of bromate. The cause of hearing loss seems to be disorder of the stria vascularis. We hope that a new cold wave neutralizer that does not contain no potassium bromate will become more widely promoted by the cosmetic industry.
Key words :hearing loss, potassium bromate, renal failure, hemodiafiltration