Efficacy of steroid injection on idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of transtympanic steroid injection on patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss compared with patients who receive oral steroids alone. Study Design Retrospective chart review. Methods Patients with a history of ISSNHL and failed oral steroid therapy were included. Audiograms were performed and patients were included if SNHL of more than 20 dB occurred over less than 72 hours. Patients who received transtympanic steroid injection were compared with those who received oral steroids alone. Results Sixty-one patients met inclusion criteria and were included in the study. The number of patients with improvement in pure tone average in the injection group was 9 (30%) compared with 5 (17%) in the oral group. Twelve (38.7%) of the injected patients did have improvement in speech discrimination scores of greater than 15% compared with only 3 (10%) in the oral steroid group. Conclusion Our study revealed that patients with ISSNHL who have failed oral steroid therapy obtain better hearing results with transtympanic steroids in comparison to oral steroids. EBM rating: B-3b