Clinical characteristics and prognosis of elderly patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to explore clinical characteristics and prognosis of elderly cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss.

Methods: Fifty-five elderly cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss and 55 younger cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss were enrolled in the study. Recovery rates of hearing between elderly group and younger group were compared. In elderly group, the recovery rate of hearing in the patients with normal hearing of the contralateral ear was compared to those with hearing loss of the contralateral ear.

Results: The overall recovery rate in the elderly group was 50.9%, significantly lower than 74.5% in the younger group (p < .01). Among the elderly group, the patients with normal hearing of the contralateral ear recovered better than those with hearing loss of the contralateral ear (recovery rates, 76.7% versus 20.0%). Among the elderly group, the recovery rate of cases with treatment onset ≤14 days was 64.7%, while the recovery rate of those with treatment onset longer than 14 days was only 28.6%, with significant difference (p < .01).

Conclusion: Elderly cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss had poor prognosis. Prognosis of elderly cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss was associated with hearing of the contralateral ear and treatment onset.

目的：探讨老年突发性感音神经性耳聋患者的临床特征及预后。

方法：55例老年突发性感音神经性耳聋患者和55例年轻突发性感音神经性耳聋患者被纳入该研究。比较老年组和年轻组之间的听力恢复率。在老年组中, 将对侧耳朵听力正常的患者的听力恢复率与对侧耳朵听力丧失的患者进行比较。

结果：老年组的总体恢复率为50.9％, 显著低于年轻组的74.5％（p <.01）。在老年组中, 对侧耳听力正常的患者恢复优于对侧耳听力丧失的患者（恢复率为分别为76.7％和20.0％）。在老年组中, 自治疗开始14天以内的病例的恢复率为64.7％, 而自治疗开始时间超过14天的病人的恢复率仅为28.6％, 差异显著（p <.01）。

结论：老年人突发性感音神经性耳聋患者预后较差。具有突然感觉神经性听力损失的老年病例的预后与对侧耳朵的听力和治疗开始相关。

Keywords:

• Sudden sensorineural hearing loss
• elderly
• contralateral ear
• recovery rate

Acknowledgment

Thanks goes to Daowen Wang for the assistance in English language editing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.