Airbag and hearing loss: our experience

The international literature reports sporadic cases of sudden sensorineural hearing loss associated with Airbag inflation in subjects involved in car accidents, who had never suffered from hearing loss and had no history of pathologies that could otherwise explain the hearing loss. The authors have studied the actual incidence of this possibility, analysing 25 subjects submitted to an airbag inflation. Only subjects who had never suffered from previous otological pathology were considered for the study. The examination was carried out 3 to 10 days after the accident. Otoscopical examination, tympanometry and audiometry were normal in all the examined subjects. The Author's opinion is that traumatic hearing loss following airbag inflation is a rare or exceptional incident that probably occurs in subjects with a particular susceptibility and sensitivity.