Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss With Minimal Hearing Impairment.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to determine the characteristics of patients who did not match the audiometric criteria of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) but complained of acute hearing loss.

METHODS: By thorough medical chart reviews, historical cohort study was performed with consecutive data of 589 patients complaining of acute unilateral sensorineural hearing loss without identifiable causes between 2005 and 2013. Those patients demonstrating a hearing loss of at least 30 dB at three consecutive frequencies based on pure tone audiometry were classified as group I; the others were classified as group II. Patients' characteristics, final hearing, and hearing improvement rate (HIR) between the two groups were compared.

RESULTS: Group II exhibited distinctive characteristics, including an early age of onset of the hearing loss (P<0.01), an absence of accompanying diabetes (P<0.01) and hypertension (P<0.01), and better unaffected hearing and final hearing compared with group I (P<0.001). However, the HIR of the patients in the two groups was not significantly different (P>0.05).

CONCLUSION: Patients who did not meet the audiological criteria of SSNHL exhibited distinctive characteristics compared to SSNHL patients.