Effect of Etiologic Factors on Prognosis of Hearing Recovery in Sudden Deafness / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: There are lots of debates regarding the prognostic factors in sudden deafness patients. The aim of this study is to identify prognostic factors that might be associated with the degree of hearing recovery from sudden deafness. MATERIALS AND METHOD: We reviewed the records of 110 patients who were admitted for treatment between 1999 and 2001 under the initial diagnosis of idiopathic sudden hearing loss. Patients were classified into following subgroups based on the data of our own diagnostic protocol, including history taking, physical examination and laboratory tests cardiovascular hematologic group, infectious group, metabolic group, immunologic group, cochlear neurologic group, and the other group. RESULTS: Patients who had cardiovascular hematologic factors and cochlear neurologic factors showed lower recovery rates than the other patients. Patients with metabolic factors showed higher recovery rate than those with other factors. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that cardiovascular hematologic factors and cochlear neurologic factors might be most significantly related with prognosis in sudden deafness patients.