Auditory Impairment in Young Type 1 Diabetics

Abstract

Background and aims: More attention has recently been focused on auditory impairment of young type 1 diabetics. This study aimed to evaluate auditory function of young type 1 diabetics and the correlation between clinical indexes and hearing impairment.

Methods: We evaluated the auditory function of 50 type 1 diabetics and 50 healthy subjects. Clinical indexes were measured along with analyzing their relation of auditory function.

Results: Type 1 diabetic patients demonstrated a deficit with elevated thresholds at right ear and left ear when compared to healthy controls (p <0.01). The elevated auditory threshold was significantly related with HDL-cholesterol, diabetes duration, and systemic blood pressure (p <0.05). Moreover, latencies of right ear (wave III, V and interwave I-V) and left ear (wave III, V and interwave I-III, I-V) in diabetic group significantly increased compared to those in control subjects (p <0.01). Auditory brainstem response was significantly related with GHbA1C and microalbuminuria (p <0.01). Furthermore, distortion product evoked otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) of diabetes group were statistically significant in right ears at 4.0, 6.0 kHz and in left ears at 4.0, 6.0, 8.0 kHz (p <0.01) compared with those of controls. Diabetic patients demonstrated lower amplitude responses of the right ear than the left ear at 8.0 kHz. Only triglyceride was positively correlated to the hearing impairment defined by DPOAE (p <0.01). There was no significance of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) between groups. TEOAE was associated with age and GHbA1C (p <0.01).

Conclusions: Type 1 diabetics exerted higher auditory threshold, slower auditory conduction time and cochlear impairment. HDL-cholesterol, diabetes duration, systemic blood pressure, microalbuminuria, GHbA1C, triglyceride, and age may affect the auditory function of type 1 diabetics.

Keywords: Auditory brainstem response; Hearing impairment; Otoacoustic emissions; Type 1 diabetes.