高齢者の突発性難聴

Abstract

To clarify the clinical features of sudden deafness in the elderly, we investigated patients' profile and the prognosis of sudden deafness retrospectively. Of 224 patients with sudden deafness between 1978 and 1999, twenty-five patients more than 65 years of age were studied. The following results were obtained:1. The mean age of the patients was 70.8 years old, and there was no predominance in gender. The frequency of sudden deafness in the elderly has increased since 1998.2. Of 25 patients, 10 (40%) carried other systemic diseases at the onset of sudden deafness, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension and liver dysfunction.3. The recovery of hearing loss in aged patients with sudden deafness was significantly worse than that in patients under 65 years of age.4. The aged patients tended to have various hearing losses in the contralateral ears. A poor prognosis of sudden deafness was noted in patients with hearing loss in the contralateral ear.