The Effect of Multiple Sclerosis on Pure Tone Thresholds

Abstract

The pure tone audiograms of 44 multiple sclerosis (MS) and 44 matched neurological control patients were studied with a view to finding out whether demyelinating disease is associated with decreased acuity to pure tones. The results show that MS patients have essentially normal hearing but auditory acuity at some of the low frequencies was found to be significantly worse in the MS group compared to the control patients. No correlation was found between the affected frequencies and the patient's age, sex and duration of the disease. The differences in thresholds between the control and MS patients were confined to the 25 patients who had clinical evidence of brain stem lesions suggesting that the cause of the abnormality in thresholds is in the brain stem.