The relationship between hearing loss and proliferative diabetic retinopathy : case series

الملخص EN

Background: This study aims to find the correlation between the presence of hearing loss and its severity in patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy taking the type of ophthalmic neovascularization as a guide for the severity of retinopathy.

Material: Prospective study included 42 consecutive patients who are known to have proliferative diabetic retinopathy.

The average severityof hearing loss was recorded,andits relationshipwithpatients’ diabetes mellitus (DM)duration, demographics, and diabetic retinopathy severitywasdescribed.

Results: In the group of recruited patients, there were more males(61.9%) than females (38.1%)with mean age of59.45 years and having average diabetes duration since its discovery was17.4 years.

There were 7 patients with normal hearing (m:3, f:4), 31 affected with bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) (m:20, f:11), one with bilateral mixed (having both neurosensory and conductive components) hearing loss (male) and three with differenttypes of hearing loss in both ears (m:2, f:1).

None had pure conductive hearing loss except for one patient with right tympanic membrane rupture,and her right ear was excluded.

Most ears were having mild and moderate sensorineural hearing loss (32 and 24 respectively) leaving seven ears with severe and one with profound sensorineural hearing loss.

There were only four ears with mixed hearing loss with 2 of them having moderate hearing loss.

Thirteen of our patients had DM more than 20 years and all of them had at least moderate SNHL component.

25 patients had DM for 11-20 years;28% of them were normal,60% had mild and moderate SNHL and 12% were having severe and profound hearing loss.There are 13 patients with DM of more than 20 years and all of them where having at least mild SNHL.There are three patients younger than 40 years two of which were normal and one with mild hearing loss.

Nine patients were above the age of 70, third of which were having severe and profound hearing loss and the other two thirds with only mild and moderate hearing loss.

There was an increasing number of patients with ages in-between 40 and 70 with moderate and severe SNHL as compared with younger age groups.

Conclusion: A higher number of cases of severe hearing loss were notedin older male patients with longer duration of DM since diagnosis.

Most of the hearing loss weremostly sensorineuralin nature.

Patients with more severe diabetic retinopathy scored comparable hearing loss test resultsas was compared with less severe diabetic retinopathy cases.