Intratympanic steroids for treatment of sudden hearing loss after failure of intravenous therapy

Abstract

We sought to describe our experience with intratympanic steroid treatment of sudden sensorineural hearing loss after failure of intravenous steroid treatment. We conducted a nonrandomized prospective clinical trial. Fifty patients presenting with sudden onset idiopathic hearing loss were treated intravenously over five days. After this period, patients with treatment failure (18 cases) were offered intratympanic steroid treatment. Nine patients refused, whereas the other nine patients received three weekly injections of methylprednisolone. Recovery of hearing was reported as improvement of more than 15 dB in pure tone average. Intratympanic steroid treatment improved hearing loss in five patients (55%). This is significant compared with those patients who refused intratympanic treatment, who showed no further improvement (P < 0.05). No serious adverse effects were observed. Intratympanic steroids significantly improve the recovery outcome of sudden hearing loss that had not recovered after intravenous steroid treatment. Intratympanic steroids are an effective and safe therapy in sudden sensorineural hearing loss cases that are refractory to standard treatment.