Effects of Behçet's disease on hearing thresholds and transient evoked otoacoustic emissions

The aim of this prospective study was to investigate hearing loss in patients with Behçet disease (BD).

The study group consisted of 20 patients (8 males, 12 females) with BD and 40 ears. The control group consisted of 20 healthy patients without BD (8 males, 12 females) and 40 ears. All subjects were evaluated by an otolaryngologic examination, pure-tone and high-frequency audiometry, and transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs).

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) was present in 25% of the ears on pure-tone audiometry and 60% of the ears on high-frequency audiometry in the study group. In the study group, at pure-tone and high-frequency audiometry, hearing thresholds were significantly higher than in the control group. For TEOAE values, in the BD group, each of the 1.0 to 4.0 kHz percent and amplitude values was significantly lower than in the control group. It was found that as age increased, hearing thresholds increased and TEOAEs decreased. As the disease duration got longer, hearing thresholds continued to increase and otoacoustic emissions at 3.0 kHz decreased. In males, hearing thresholds increased more whereas emissions decreased more than in females.

Since SNHL is not infrequent in BD patients, patients may be evaluated regularly by pure-tone and high-frequency audiometry and TEOAEs. It may be possible to detect cochlear pathologies earlier than audiometric tests by TEOAEs.