Hearing profile in children with bacterial meningitis treated with dexamethasone

Thirty children with proved bacterial meningitis were included in this prospective clinical study aiming at assessment of the role of dexamethasone therapy in reducing the incidence of hearing impairment as a complication of bacterial meningitis. The patients were divided into two equal groups, the first group received antibiotics alone while the second group received dexamethasone for 4 days beside the appropriate antibiotics. Hearing evaluation was done for all patients within 4-6 weeks after discharge. Hearing evaluation included basic audiologic evaluation namely pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry and tympanometry as well as brainstem audiometry some patients. Hearing evaluation revealed that dexamethasone reduces the incidence of hearing impairment particularly in children with meningitis due to hemophilus influenzae. The overall incidence of sensorineural hearing loss and conductive hearing loss in the first group was 6.7% and 23.3% respectively compared to an incidence of 24% and 43.4% respectively in the second group. Our study recommends the use of dexamethasone in all cases of bacterial meningitis to reduce the incidence of hearing loss