The correlation between glycosylated haemoglobin levels with pure tone average values in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients

Abstract

Hearing plays an important role in our daily activities, if it is impaired or lost the quality of life is affected by improper communication. The diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder and affects all the systems in the body including auditory system. So assessment of hearing is important in diabetics to know the type, extent of hearing impairment which helps to take treatment decisions and preventive measures. Present study is focused on relationship between glycosylated haemoglobin (HbA1c) levels with pure tone average (PTA) values in type 2 diabetics. Type 2 diabetic patients with (WHI) and without (WoHI) hearing impairment, both the gender was included with age limit between 35-55 years and also ten normal subjects were included as controls. Pure tone average (PTA) is the average of hearing threshold levels at different frequencies; it gives information about an individual’s hearing level in each ear. All the data were expressed as mean ± SE. The mean were analyzed by one way ANOVA. Pearson correlation test was done to see the relationship between right and left ear PTA values in normal subjects, WoHI and WHI groups with HbA1c values. In both the groups pure tone average values are not statistically correlated with HbA1c. The left ear of both WoHI (P=0.977) and WHI (P=0.490) groups shows negative correlation with HbA1c. The HbA1c values are correlated with PTA values in all subjects. The pure tone audiometry is helpful to know the status of hearing sensitivity and type, severity of the hearing impairment in the T2DM patients in relation to HbA1c levels.