Background: The rheumatoid arthritis is a clinical entity capable to cause hearing impairment that can be diagnosed promptly with high frequencies audiometry.
Objective: To detect subclinical sensorineural hearing loss in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Material and methods: Cross-sectional study on patients with rheumatoid arthritis performing high frequency audiometry 125Hz to 16,000Hz and tympanometry. The results were correlated with markers of disease activity and response to therapy.
Results: High frequency audiometry was performed in 117 female patients aged from 19 to 65 years. Sensorineural hearing loss was observed at a sensitivity of pure tones from 125 to 8,000 Hz in 43.59%, a tone threshold of 10,000 to 16,000Hz in 94.02% patients in the right ear and in 95.73% in the left ear. Hearing was normal in 8 (6.84%) patients. Hearing loss was observed in 109 (93.16%), and was asymmetric in 36 (30.77%), symmetric in 73 (62.37%), bilateral in 107 (91.45%), unilateral in 2 (1.71%), and no conduction and/or mixed hearing loss was encountered. Eight (6.83%) patients presented vertigo, 24 (20.51%) tinnitus. Tympanogram type A presented in 88.90% in the right ear and 91.46% in the left ear, with 5.98 to 10.25% type As. Stapedius reflex was present in 75.3 to 85.2%. Speech discrimination in the left ear was significantly different (p = 0.02)in the group older than 50 years. No association was found regarding markers of disease activity, but there was an association with the onset of rheumatoid arthritis disease.
Conclusions: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis had a high prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss for high and very high frequencies.
Keywords: Artritis reumatoide; Audiometría de altas frecuencias; High frequency audiometry; Hipoacusia neurosensorial; Rheumatoid arthritis; Sensorineural hearing loss.
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