Ipoacusia improvvisa: Elementi clinico-diagnostici ed implicazioni terapeutiche

Sudden deafness is defined as a sensorineural hearing loss of varying degrees that develops instantaneously or within hours. Between January 1989 and August 1999, 112 cases were diagnosed as sudden hearing loss in our Clinic: from this group, 12 cases of secondary sudden hearing loss were excluded. A further restrictive group has been selected using following criteria: onset time of sudden hearing loss lower than 8 h; hearing loss higher than 20 dB in three next frequencies (0,5, 1, 2, 4, 8 KHz); minimum follow-up of 6 months. The definitive group was formed of 64 patients with monolaterale idiopathic sudden hearing loss (37 males, 27 females; 30 right ears, 34 left ears; aged between 13 and 80 years). General and otologic anamnesis, clinical and audiological examination, ematochimical tests and CT or MR, were performed. A statistic analysis was conducted by a multivaried regression system (p<0,05). Finally, our results were, in order of importance: 1- the gravity of hearing loss conditions negatively the recovery; 2- the ageing of patient is a negative prognostic factor; 3- before the patient begins the therapy, better is the recovery; 4- the different therapeutic protocols utilised are equivalent for the recovery (p<0,05).