Middle and inner ear changes in congenital rubella

Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss: Speech Intelligibility Deficits Following Threshold Recovery

OBJECTIVES

This retrospective study tests the hypothesis that patients who have recovered from idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) show deficits in word recognition tasks that cannot be entirely explained by a loss in audibility.

DESIGN

We reviewed the audiologic profile of 166 patients presenting with a unilateral SSNHL. Hearing loss severity, degree of threshold recovery, residual hearing loss, and word recognition performance were considered as outcome variables. Age, route of treatment, delay between SSNHL onset and treatment, and audiogram configuration were considered as predictor variables.

RESULTS

Severity, residual hearing loss, and recovery were highly variable across patients. While age and onset-treatment delay could not account for the severity, residual hearing loss and recovery in thresholds, configuration of the SSNHL and overall inner ear status as measured by thresholds on the contralateral ear were predictive of threshold recovery. Speech recognition performance was significantly poorer than predicted by the speech intelligibility curve derived from the patient's audiogram.

CONCLUSIONS

SSNHL is associated with (1) changes in thresholds that are consistent with ischemia and (2) speech intelligibility deficits that cannot be entirely explained by a change in hearing sensitivity.

Congenital Deafness and Recent Advances Towards Restoring Hearing Loss

Congenital hearing loss is the most common birth defect, estimated to affect 2-3 in every 1000 births. Currently there is no cure for hearing loss. Treatment options are limited to hearing aids for mild and moderate cases, and cochlear implants for severe and profound hearing loss. Here we provide a literature overview of the environmental and genetic causes of congenital hearing loss, common animal models and methods used for hearing research, as well as recent advances towards developing therapies to treat congenital deafness. © 2021 The Authors.

Viral etiology for inner ear diseases: proven, unproven, unlikely

This is a revision article that deals with the broad field of inner ear disease caused by viral infections. Some of these entities have been proven to have a viral etiology. Others have strong evidence in favor of a viral causation but still cannot be considered as a viral disease. Finally, other entities are suggestive of a viral etiology but when the whole body of evidence is considered one concludes that a viral etiology is indeed unlikely. We review the literature and add our own experience in this subject. Clearly, the most important evidence about this subject came from the study of temporal bone histopathology. Certainly, we can learn much more if we continue to collect and study temporal bone specimens histopathologically.