Increased Incidence of Glaucoma in Sensorineural Hearing Loss: A Population-Based Cohort Study.

Hsiang-Wen Chien,Chi-Chin Sun,Jing-Yang Huang,Shun-Fa Yang,Pei-Hsuan Wu,Kai Wang,Hung-Chi Chen,Chia-Yi Lee

doi:10.3390/ijerph16162907

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the incidence of glaucoma in patients diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) via the application of the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. A retrospective cohort study was conducted. Patients with a diagnosis of SNHL were enrolled in the study group after an exclusion procedure and a propensity score matched group without SNHL was served as the control group with a 1:2 ratio. The main outcome was regarded as the emergence of glaucoma diagnostic codes. Cox proportional hazard regression was applied to analyze the incidence and adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of glaucoma in the multivariate model. A total of 15,686 patients diagnosed with SNHL were enrolled in the study group while another 31,372 non-SNHL individuals served as the control group. There were 444 glaucoma events in the study group and 647 glaucoma events in those non-SNHL individuals after the follow-up interval of 16 years. The study group demonstrated a significantly higher aHR compared to the control group after adjusting for multiple possible risk factors. In the subgroup analysis, both the normal tension glaucoma and angle closure glaucoma subgroups revealed a higher aHR in the study group. In conclusion, the patients with SNHL demonstrated a higher incidence of developing glaucoma. Moreover, the incidence was more prominent for patients diagnosed with normal tension glaucoma and angle closure glaucoma.

Highlights

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) refers to hearing impairment resulting from damage among cochlear, labyrinth and central nervous system [1,2]
A total number of 15,686 patients diagnosed with SNHL were included in the study group, and another 31,372 non-SNHL individuals served as the control group
The numbers of people diagnosed with Parkinson's disease was significantly higher in the study group, while the individuals diagnosed with hypertension was prominently higher in the control group, and the remaining basic characters, including age and gender distributions, remained similar (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) refers to hearing impairment resulting from damage among cochlear, labyrinth and central nervous system [1,2]. SNHL influences the majority of the population for which the prevalence of age-related SNHL accounted for more than 60 percent in those older than 65 years [3]. Regarding the etiology of SNHL, various causes including noise-related, infectious, Int. J. Res. Public Health 2019, 16, 2907; doi:10.3390/ijerph16162907 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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