Chronological Study of Recovery of Sudden Deafness Treated with Defibrinogenation and Steroid Therapies

Abstract

The time courses of hearing recovery resulting from two types of treatment of sudden deafness patients, defibrinogenation (DF) therapy and betamethazone (BM) therapy, were analyzed and compared. a paired double-blind comparative study was performed on 168 patients. the average hearing level was 79.2 dBHL in the DF therapy group (n=82) and 82.3 dBHL in the BM therapy group (n=86). the DF group showed significantly better hearing 1 week after start of treatment at frequencies of 0.25,0.5 and 1 kHz. After 2 weeks of treatment, the average hearing level for the frequency range of 0.25-4 kHz was 47.0 dBHL with DF therapy and 55.8 dBHL with BM therapy. Thus, the DF group still showed better hearing than the BM group (p< 0.10, t-test), but not as significantly as after 1 week. It is concluded that therapy for increasing blood circulation is important in the early phase of sudden deafness, especially for hearing loss in the low to middle frequency range.

Key Words:

• defibrinogenation
• steroid
• sudden deafness
• hearing recovery