Objective: To determine the efficacy of various treatment modalities used for acute noise-induced hearing loss (aNIHL) from acute acoustic trauma (AAT) via a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Data sources: PubMed, Cochrane, and Scopus databases.
Study selection: The scientific literature was searched up to October 2018 for articles evaluating hearing outcomes after treatment of aNIHL.
Data extraction: The following were extracted: Oxford level of evidence, number of patients, mean age, time to presentation, source of noise exposure, method of treatment/intervention, baseline hearing threshold, posttreatment hearing threshold, hearing gain, proportion of patients with no recovery, partial recovery, or complete recovery, and treatment complications.
Data synthesis: Sixteen studies with 932 patients met inclusion criteria for systematic review and four studies with 187 patients were included in the meta-analysis.
Conclusions: Treatment modalities identified were steroids, vascular agents, nootropics, antioxidants, vitamins, cell apoptosis inhibitors, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Meta-analysis demonstrated significant improvement in mean hearing threshold for patients with high-frequency hearing loss, those treated within 48 hours, and those receiving treatment with a nootropic agent. Significant heterogeneity was present in experimental design among included studies and many were of lower levels of evidence. More prospective, large scale, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trials are required to determine optimal treatment regimens for patients suffering from aNIHL caused by AAT.