Effects of diabetes mellitus and systemic arterial hypertension on elderly patients’ hearing

Publication date: Available online 21 September 2017
Source:Brazilian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology
Author(s): Laurie Penha Rolim, Alessandra Giannella Samelli, Renata Rodrigues Moreira, Carla Gentile Matas, Itamar de Souza Santos, Isabela Martins Bensenor, Paulo Andrade Lotufo
IntroductionChronic diseases can act as an accelerating factor in the auditory system degeneration. Studies on the association between presbycusis and diabetes mellitus (DM) and systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) have shown controversial conclusions.ObjectiveTo compare the initial audiometry (A1) with a subsequent audiometry (A2) performed after a 3 to 4-year interval in a population of elderly patients with DM and/or SAH, to verify whether hearing loss in these groups is more accelerated when compared to controls without these clinical conditions.Methods100 elderly individuals participated in this study. For the auditory threshold assessment, a previous complete audiological evaluation (A1) and a new audiological evaluation (A2) performed 3–4 years after the first one was utilized. The participants were divided into four groups: 20 individuals in the DM group, 20 individuals in the AH group, 20 individuals in the DMAH and 40 individuals in the control group (CG), matching them with each study group, according to age and gender. ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis statistical tests were used, with a significance level set at 0.05.ResultsWhen comparing the mean annual increase in the auditory thresholds of the A1 with the A2 assessment, considering each study group and its respective control, it can be observed that there was no statistically significant difference for any of the frequencies for the DM group; for the AH group, significant differences were observed after 4kHz. For the DMAH group, significant differences were observed at the frequencies of 500, 2kHz, 3kHz and 8kHz.ConclusionIt was observed that the AH group showed the greatest decrease in auditory thresholds in the studied segment when compared to the other groups, suggesting that among the three studied conditions, hypertension seems to have the greatest influence on hearing.



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