Vol.95 No.6 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 95 No. 6 June 2002
Factors Affecting the Prognosis of Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural
Hearing Loss
Akiko Sakai
(Kobe Ekisaikai Hospital)
Toru Seo, Michiko Node and Masafumi Sakagami
(Hyogo College of Medicine)
Sudden sensorineural hearing loss is an important otologic disorder, and some patients are even hospitalized for treatment. In this study, we investigated the factors affecting the hearing prognosis. We also analyzed whether hospitalization induced a good prognosis.
Between January 1989 and September 1997, 196 patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss came to the Department of Otolaryngology, Hyogo College of Medicine within two weeks from the onset. There were 91 males and 105 females, and their ages ranged from 10 to 79 (mean 50.6) years. The grading system and improvement score depended on the research group on sudden deafness of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare (1984, 1998).
The cure rates of the V character type, the low tone type, dip type and unfixed type were over 50％, whereas those of the high tone type, completly deafness and profoundly deafness were under 30％. The recovery rate was 100％ in the teenage group, and 41.7％ in the 70-year-old group, in which the younger group had a better hearing prognosis. The cure rate was 51.9％ in grade 1 and 13.2％ in grade 4, indicating that, the lower the grade, the higher the cure rate. Dysequilibrium was reported by 29.1％ of all patients, and by over 50％ of the completly deafness and the profoundly deaf patients. The recovery rate in the no dysequilibrium group was higher (60.4％) than that in the dysequilibrium group (24.6％) (p＜0.05). The recovery rate of the hospitalized group was 49.5％ and that of the unhospitalized group was 50.3％. There was no significant difference between the groups.
Key words : sudden sensorineural hearing loss, prognosis of hearing, grading system