Study of the factors related to air-bone gap in enlarged vestibular aqueduct

Abstract

Background

Over half of patients with enlarged vestibular aqueducts (EVA) will have an air-bonr gap (ABG), however, current research on audiology has focused on the influencing factors of air-conducted.

Objective

To retrospectively analyse the influencing factors and clinical manifestations of the bone-conduction threshold and ABG in patients with EVA.

Materials and methods

We included 286 patients with EVA; among them, 126 had full SLC26A4 gene sequence results. We performed a descriptive analysis of the bone-conduction threshold and explored the effect of age. Finally, we analyzed the relationship of ABG and SLC26A4 genes with the degree of vestibular aqueduct (VA) enlargement.

Results

Among 555 ears, 312 (57.8%) ears had ABG; approximately 94% of the patients’ bone-conduction hearing is almost completely lost at frequencies of 2 and 4 kHz. There was no linear correlation between age and bone-conduction threshold (p > 0.05). ABG did not significantly differ according to the degree of VA enlargement and number of SLC26A4 allele mutations (p > 0.05).

Conclusions and significance

Among patients with EVA, ABG is mainly produced at low frequencies and is not significantly correlated with age, size of the VA opening or SLC26A4 genes, which could be attributed to the biomechanical effects.

Chinese Abstract

背景

超过一半的前庭导水管扩大 (EVA) 患者会出现气骨间隙(ABG), 然而, 目前听力学的研究主要集中在气导的影响因素上。

目的

回顾性分析EVA 患者的骨导阈值和 ABG的影响因素及临床表现。

材料和方法

我们纳入了 286 名 EVA 患者, 其中, 126名具有完整的SLC26A4基因序列结果。 我们对骨导阈值进行了描述性分析并探索了年龄的影响。 最后, 我们分析了ABG和SLC26A4基因与前庭导水管(VA)扩大的程度的关系。

结果

在555只耳中, 312只耳(57.8%)出现ABG； 大约94%的患者的骨传导听力在 2 kHz 和 4 kHz 频率下几乎完全丧失。 在年龄和骨导阈值之间不存在线性相关性(p > 0.05)。 ABG 根据程度没有显着差异VA 增大和 SLC26A4 等位基因突变数量 (p > 0.05)。

结论及意义

EVA患者中, ABG主要以低频产生, 且与年龄、VA开口大小或SLC26A4基因没有显著相关性, 这可能是归因于生物力学效应。

Keywords:

• Enlarged vestibular aqueduct
• air-bone gap
• influencing factors
• mechanics

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the key International (Regional) Joint Research Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC#81820108009), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC #82000976), and National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFF0702302).