Sensorineural Hearing Loss In Patients With Chronic Otitis Media: A Retrospective Study

Background: Chronic otitis media is one of the leading cause of childhood hearing loss, which is classified as mucosal (safe) and squamosal (unsafe), with higher risk in the latter. While hearing loss is mostly conductive, SNHL can result from inflammatory damage to the cochlea or auditory pathways.This study determines the percentage, pattern, and severity of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) in mucosal and squamosal types of chronic otitis media (COM).

Materials and methods: A retrospective study of 120 patients with unilateral COM was done where demographic data, disease duration, main symptoms, and pure tone audiometry results from patient records were collected. Bone conduction (BC) thresholds were checked to assess sensorineural hearing loss and compared with respect to age, gender, and disease duration.

Results: The bone conduction thresholds were found to be significantly higher in diseased ear as compared to the control ear mainly affecting the higher speech frequencies. A correlation was found between patients age and type of COM with no difference in males and females.

Conclusion: COM can cause SNHL that increases with increase in age and presence of squamosal type of disease mostly affecting the higher speech frequencies. Hence COM cases should be recognised early, with timely and effective treatment the chances of developing SNHL can be prevented.