Evaluating the Prevalence of Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Chronic Renal Failure Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis in Imam Khomeini Hospital, Ahvaz, 2012-2014

Mozafar Sarafraz¹, Seyed Seifollah Beladi Musavi², Somayeh Araghi^3* and Samaneh Azizi Manesh⁴

¹Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.

²Associate Professor Of Nephrology Department Of internal Medicin, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.

³MD and Resident of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.

⁴Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/2178

ABSTRACT: End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) is a main and serious cause of disability and mortality in developed societies. This debilitating condition affects many aspects of the patients’ life, among which sensorineural hearing loss can be mentioned as one of the notorious side effects of renal failure. There are reasons which can justify the higher rate of hearing loss in these patients; from which the anatomical, physiological, pharmacological and pathological similarities between nephrons and the structure of cochlea is of great notion. Thus, this study was conducted based on the purpose of determining the prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss in ESRD patients undergoing hemodialysis inImam khomeini Hospital, Ahvaz, Iran. Considering the inclusion criteria of the study, 58 patients under hemodialysis therapy were assigned to the study. Firstly, to assure the health of tympanic membrane, otoscopy was performed for all of the patients. After otoscopy examination, a tympanometery test (Type B tympanometery) was also done. Those, whom this test was performed for, if both ears proved afflicted by conductive hearing loss, were excluded from the study. For the remaining cases, pure tone audiometery and speech tests including Speech Discrimination Score (SDS) and Dynamic Range (DR) were carried out and the obtained data were summarized by descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) in different age groups, frequency of auditory waves, gender, and duration of dialysis. From the 58 patients participating in this study, 53 patients (91.4%) had sensorineural hearing loss, 14 cases unilaterally and the other 39 bilaterally. The results for the prevalence of hearing loss were 71% for high frequencies (4-8 KHz), 36.8 % for moderate frequencies (1-2 KHz) and 54.3 % for low frequencies (0.25-0.5 KHz). 36 of evaluated patients (31.5%) represented with hearing loss in all the 3 categories of frequencies. The rate of patients with abnormal DR results was considerably high (32.7%). This study also demonstrated an uprising trend in correlation with age and hearing impairment seems to have no correlation with gender and the duration of hemodialysis therapy. It was also shown that high and low frequencies are affected more severely by the pathologic process of the hearing loss. This study has demonstrated that the sensorineural hearing loss was of high prevalence (91.4%) among the chronic renal failure patients, under hemodialysis treatment. therefore, some facilities should be considered in CRF patients in order to prevent such progressive complications. Although further studies are needed to show more evidence in this case.

KEYWORDS: Sensory neural hearing loss; Chronic renal failure; Hemodialysis; End stage renal disease

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