Evaluation of adjuvant intratympanic dexamethasone administration in the treatment of sudden sensorineural hearing loss

OBJECTIVE: The treatment of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSHL) depends mainly on the steroids, and there is an increasing number of studies about not only systemic usage but also local administration of steroids to the target organ. The aim of this study is to determine the effects of intratympanic steroid (ITS) administration as adjuvant to systemic steroid (SS) treatment in the management of ISSHL. MATERIALS and METHODS: Seventy-nine patients (41 F, 38 M) with a mean age of 48.2 years were included in the study. The data were collected by retrospective analysis of the patient records. The hearing levels of 36 patients treated with only SS (group I) and 43 patients treated with SS and ITS concomitantly (group II) were evaluated with pure tone audiometry tests at 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, and 8000 Hz frequencies in the pretreatment period and 1 and 3 months after treatment. RESULTS: The mean values of hearing thresholds in the audiometry performed in the pretreatment period and 1 and 3 months after treatment in the SS treatment group were 52.2}20, 39.5}25.3, and 35.3}25.3, respectively, while in the IT+SS treatment group, these values were determined as 60.7}19.9, 38.3}23.8, and 33.2}22.7, respectively. The improvements in mean hearing thresholds by time were statistically significantly different between the 2 groups (p