Inner ear involvement in rheumatoid arthritis

This study was designed to determine the efficiency of the otoacoustic emission test in the early detection of inner ear involvement in rheumatoid arthritis [RA], the degree and type of hearing loss and to correlate the changes in inner ear function with the duration and activity of the disease. Thirty-five patients and ten healthy control subjects were included in the study. All were subjected to complete rheumatological, ENT, and audiological examination, including pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, immittancemetry and transiently evoked otoacoustic emission [TEOAE] testing. It was found that there was a relatively significant difference between the hearing threshold of RA patients and controls. RA could result in either conductive or sensorineural hearing loss [SNHL]. In Group I of early RA, ten patients had normal hearing threshold but their TEOAE had significant diminished amplitude as 50% partially passed and 16.7% failed the test. In Group II with late RA there were 63.5% who failed and 25% who partially passed with only 12.5% who passed the TEOAE test. There was a significant positive correlation between the duration of the disease and the degree of inner ear involvement as determined by pure tone audiometry and TEOAE. No correlation was found between the activity of the disease or medications with the degree of inner ear involvement. TEOAE is considered a good method for early detection of inner ear involvement in RA