EVALUATION OF COVID-19 IMPACT ON AUDITORY PATHWAY

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 ENT department, Audiology unit, Ain-Shams university, Cairo, Egypt

2 Department of Audiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University , Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2) infection. The origin of COVID-19 was reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, where cases of unknown pneumonia were reported. A novel coronavirus was obtained from these cases and was suggested as the cause of this outbreak. Aim of the Work: To detect presence or absence of auditory dysfunction and its type in COVID-19 patients. To investigate the possible site of lesion (up to the level of brain stem) in relation to COVID-19 infection.
Patients and Methods: The present study was conducted on a total of forty-five subjects in Audiology Unit-Ain Shams University Specialized Hospital and El-Demerdash hospital. The study was performed on two groups: a study group consisted of 30 post COVID-19 patients with mean age of 34.80 + 9.81 years and a control group consisted of 15 normal hearing individuals without previous history of COVID-19 infection, their mean age was 32.80 + 8.28 years. Both study and control groups underwent basic audiological assessment (PTA, acoustic immitancemetry & acoustic reflex), TEOAEsand neuro-otologic ABR. Results: In the present study, Pure tone audiometry showed normal hearing in 28 (93.3 %) subjects of the study group subjects and documented mild high frequency sensorineural hearing loss in 2 (6.7%) subjects. Speech audiometry showed normal speech reception threshold and excellent speech discrimination in all subjects. Although the average of all frequencies was found within the normal limits in the hearing assessment of patients by PTA performed in patients who had COVID-19 and recovered, a significant higher thresholds was found, especially at 2, 4 and 8 KHz in comparison to the control group, Also there was significant lower (worse) TEOAEs signal to noise ratio (SNR) values at (2.8 and 4 KHz) in the study group in comparison to the control group and no significant difference between the study and control groups as regards low repetition rate & high repetition rate ABR parameters. Conclusion: In conclusion, pure tone audiometry and transient evoked oto-acoustic emissions were affected in subjects infected with COVID-19 specially at the high frequencies.

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