[Hearing evaluation of thalassemic patients with desferrioxamine therapy in Qazvin thalassemia center and Tehran pediatrics' medical center]

Objective: The purpose of study was identify hearing loss in thalassemic patients with history of Desferrioxamine [DFO] therapy. This study was carried out in a cross-sectional descriptive survey on 195 thalassemic patients [3-30 years old] in Gazvin Thalassemia center and Tehran pediatrics and apos medical center

Methods: The patients underwent routine otolaryngologic history and physical examination, along with standard pure-tone audiometry

Results: Hearing loss was present in 43.1% of patients. 16% of patients had conductive hearing loss and 4.6% of patient had sensory neural hearing loss. 22.5% of thalassemic patients had high-frequency sensory neural hearing loss and more importantly, high-frequency hearing loss attributable to Desferrioxamine ototoxicity was present in 12% of patients. Furthermore, these evaluations showed that there is a significant relationship between hearing loss and DFO usage and hearing loss too. There is no significant relationship between hearing loss and ferritin level between hearing loss and age of DFO usage too

Conclusion: Management of these patients requires proper dosing of Desferrioxamine, along with regular otolaryngolgic and audiometric follow-up in order to prevent the effect of ototoxicity of desferal

[Competing sentence test [CST] results in patients with cerebrovascular accident [CVA]]

Objective: As the cerebrovascular diseases [CVD] are among the most common anomalies that are directly or indirectly affecting the auditory cortex, studying in this area is important. We tried to evaluate the function of CANS in a group of 50-70 years old cerebrovascular accident [CVA] patients with no hearing complaint by competing sentences test [CST] as a dichotic speech test

Method and Material: This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted at Loghman-e-Hakim hospital between 22, august 1999 and 20, July 2000 in a group of 30 normal 50-70 years old persons and a group of 40 patients with CVA including 30 patients with abnormal CT scan and 10 patients with normal CT scan

Results: The results point out the mean scores of CST in the normal group were at normal range [80-100%] in both ears. And mean scores of CST decreased in the patients groups. There were significant difference between mean scores of CST in the patients with CVA and control groups

Conclusion: CST seems to be a valuable test in the CANS test batteries for the cerebrovascular diseases