Audiological Evaluation of Twenty Patients Receiving Pentoxifylline and Prednisone AfterSudden Deafness: Prospective StudySUBJECTS AND METHODOur sample was composed of patients who reported to the otolaryngology emergency room of the Federal University of Sao Paulo-Paulista Medical School (UNIFESP-EPM), all of whom had received care during the entire year of 2001. All patients were subjected to a complete otolaryngological evaluation with magnetic resonance imaging, pure-tone audiometry, speech audiometry (speech reception threshold and SDS), and tympanometry curve and acoustic reflex. The hearing loss of these patients was monitored through successive audiometric examinations for a minimum period of 2months, excluding cases of abandonment of treatment. The pure-tone audiometry (air tone at frequencies of 250, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 6,000, and 8,000 Hz and bone tone at frequencies of 500, 1,000, 2,000,3,000, and 4,000 Hz), speech reception threshold, 18 de Barros et al. and SDS examinations were carried out at the audiometer (MAICO MA 41, Maico Hearing Instruments, Inc., Minneapolis, MN). For impedance audiometry, the tympanometry curve and acoustic reflexes were obtained using the Interacoustics AZ 7 (Interacoustics, Assens, Denmark) at frequencies of 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 4,000 Hz. Our sample included 20 patients with unilateral SD (20 ears), of whom 12 were men and 8 were women (right side, 11; left side, 9). Their ages ranged from 25 to 74 years. As parameters for the analysis of our sample we considered the following factors:• Sudden deafness for up to 2 months• Normal magnetic resonance image of temporal bone, eliminating the possibility of tumors or demyel inating diseases• Absence of previous treatment• Absence of alteration of external or medial ear, normal tympanometry curve• Audiometry with sensorineural hearing lossIn our analysis, we used as factors for hearing improvement the definition of improvement of hearing loss in terms of change of thresholds, as provided bythe American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery: improvement of 10 dB or more at frequencies of 500, 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000 Hz and improvement of 15% or more in SDSs. We used the 1970 classification proposed by Davis and Silverman [8] to define the degree of hearing loss (HL; average of 500, 1,000, and 2,000 Hz): normal, 0-25 dB HL; mild, 26- 40 dB HL; moderate, 41-70 dB HL; severe, 71-90 dBHL; and profound, greater than 91 dB HL. We administered prednisone in the amount of 1 mg/ kg/day (up to a maximum of 60 mg/day) for 10 days, followed by 40 mg/day for the next 10 days and 20 mg/ day for the subsequent 10 days. If hearing levels returned to normal before the end of the first 10 days, the dosage was quickly diminished, followed by 40 mg/day for the next 5 days and 20 mg/day for the subsequent 5 days . The dosage for pentoxifylJine was 600 mg/day (200 mg every 8 hours) for 2 months, even if the hearing returned to the normal level.
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..
