Objective: To confirm the association between chronic kidney disease and sensorineural hearing loss in non-dialysis non-diabetic patients and to establish the audiological profile of these patients indicating the possible location of the auditory damage.
Study design: Cross-sectional study.
Setting: Tertiary referral center.
Patients: Patients between 18 and 60 years old with chronic kidney disease, without diabetes mellitus and without personal history of otology disease, were compared with a healthy control group pared by sex and age to establish differences between their audiological profile.
Interventions: Pure tone audiometry (PTA), transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs), distortion products otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs), and auditory brainstem responses (ABR) were performed in both groups.
Main outcome measures: Mean and standard deviation of PTA auditory thresholds, TEOAEs reproducibility, DPOAEs level/noise, and ABR absolute latency and interwave latency were measured, and compared using linear mixed models.
Results: Fifty one cases were included and compared with 51 healthy volunteers. The audiometric profile found in patients with chronic kidney disease was a sensorineural hearing loss in 4 to 8 kHz frequencies in the PTA, a decrease in the TEOAEs reproducibility and a decrease in the DPOAEs level. An enlargement in the V wave absolute latency and III to V and I to V interwave latency in the ABR were also found but within normal range.
Conclusions: There is an association between chronic kidney disease in non-dialysis non diabetic adults patients and sensorineural hearing loss, affecting high frequencies and having the cochlea as the main site of auditory damage.