TITLE:
Evaluation of hearing in middle-aged patients with diabetes mellitus type 2
AUTHORS:
Bijan Forogh, Ronak Zeinolabedini, Mahdi Akbari, Elaheh Mianehsaz
KEYWORDS:
Diabetes; Auditory Brain Stem Evoked Responses; Hearing Impairment
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Biomedical Science and Engineering,
Vol.6 No.5A,
May
28,
2013
ABSTRACT: Introduction: Involvement of
auditory pathway is one of the examples of central neuropathy in diabetics. The
purpose of this study is to compare the auditory function of patients with type
2 diabetes mellitus with healthy subjects. Methodology: 30 diabetic and 30
healthy subjects participated in this study. For all participants conventional pure-tone audiometry (PTA) and
Auditory Brainstem Evoked Responses (ABER) study were performed. Results: In
PTA Hearing threshold only at 2, 4, 8 KHz frequencies were significantly higher
than healthy subjects but were in normal range in patients with diabetes.
ABER revealed that absolute latencies of waves I, III, V and inter wave
latencies of III-V, I-V, I-III were significantly prolonged in diabetics. Conclusion: In
this study, 50% of diabetic patients had
hearing defects in ABER test despite normal hearing threshold and good meta-bolic control. Prolonged inter wave latencies of I-III, III-V, I-V explains
retrocochlear and brain stem involvement.