Abstract: (5947 Views)
Background: Among patients who have sensorineural hearing loss of unknown etiology,
diabetes is one of the diseases to be routinely investigated. The relationship between
diabetes mellitus and hearing loss is still controversial. The purpose of this study was to
examine the prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss in patients with insulin-dependent
diabetes mellitus (IDDM) compared to control group.
Methods: In a cross-sectional study pure tone audiometry (PTA) and speech audiometry
was performed in 62 patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), aged under
40 years, and in 62 randomly selected age-matched non-diabetic control subjects. Subjects
with otological and other metabolic diseases were excluded from the study. We applied the
SPSS.10 statistical analysis software Chi-square and student’s test.
Results: Statistical analysis showed that the hearing of the diabetic patients were
significantly worsen than the control subjects. The hearing level tended to be worsen in the
diabetic patients than that in control subjects, but the differences were statistically
significant only at frequencies of 250,500, 4000 and 8000 Hz (p<0.05). There wasn’t
statistical significant difference between sex in two study groups (p>0.05). The mean
duration of diabetes was no statistically significant with hearing loss (p>0.05). The
frequency of complications such as retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy in the
diabetic groups had no correlation with speech threshold (p>0.05). There were no
significant differences between speech reception threshold, speech discrimination score
and acoustic reflex in two groups.
Conclusions: We conclude that type I diabetes mellitus can cause sensorineural hearing
loss.