Clinical Feature and Prognosis of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss With Rheumatoid Arthritis

Clinical Feature and Prognosis of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss With Rheumatoid Arthritis:



Objectives:

Recent publications reported that patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) experience an increased risk of suffering sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), however, these cases are poorly understood. This study aims to explore the clinical presentations and hearing recovery of SSNHL patients with RA.

Study Design:

Retrospective study.

Setting:

Tertiary medical center.

Patients:

Forty-seven SSNHL patients with RA (RA group) and 431 SSNHL patients without RA (non-RA group) were recruited between April 2015 and June 2019.

Interventions:

In the non-RA group, all patients were administrated with oral steroids. In the RA group, 21 patients were treated with oral steroid (OS group) and 26 patients were administrated with intratympanic steroids plus oral steroids (IS+OS group).

Main Outcome Measures:

We explored the clinical features and hearing recovery of SSNHL patients with RA in comparison with patients without RA, we also evaluated the therapeutic effect of combined steroids in SSNHL patients with RA.

Results:

RA group had higher initial hearing loss level (mean 68.5 dB), final hearing threshold (mean 52.3 dB), the rates of profound hearing loss (48.9%), and no recovery (48.9%) than non-RA group (mean 55.1 dB, mean 34.8 dB, 32.9 and 27.6%, all p