Hearing Evaluation in Thalassemia Patients

Abstract

Thalassemia is a chronic hemolytic anem1a common m Egypt. Children usually present early in the first six months of life, with pallor, loss of appetite, hepatosplenomegaly& failure to thrive. Repeated blood transfusions are life saving therapy & are the basis of the treatment regimen to prevent anemia. Accordingly severe iron overload occurs. Therefore, iron chelating agent as DFO is given to prevent toxic effects of iron on different body systems & to prevent death.

In this study, hearing evaluation was done on 29 patients with Beta thalassemia major with an age range from 6 to 22 years old , 18 male& II female. The study group was compared with 15 volunteers (control group) of matched age of sex. Each patient was subjected to a complete history of chronic hemolytic anemia, physical examination, otological examination and audiological assessment. This including puretone audiometry, speech audiometry, acoustic immittancemetry, Extended high frequency audiometry (10000-18000 Hz),auditory brain stem response audiometry and Transient Evoked Otoacoustic emission. The results can be summarized as following PTA results show high frequency SNHL in 48.3% mainly from 8-18 KHz & speech discrimination was excellent, tympanometric results were within normal. ABR waves were nonnal indicating normal auditory pathway, TOAE results shows within normal values except there was a significant reduction in the whole wave reproducibility & response amplitude .No correlation was found between HL & age, DFO dose, DFO duration & Serum ferritin level.