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Published on: October 18, 2011
Hearing loss and complaint in patients with head and neck cancer treated with radiotherapy
Christiane Schultz1, Maria Valéria Schmidt Goffi-Gomez, Patrícia Helena Pecora Liberman
1Department of Audiology, Hospital do Câncer A. C. Camargo, Rua Professor Antonio Prudente 211, São Paulo, Brazil. chris_schultz1@yahoo.com.br
Objective:
To investigate occurrences of hearing loss and hearing complaints among patients with head and neck tumors who underwent radiotherapy.
Design:
Prospective case-control study.
Setting:
Tertiary care hospital.
Participants:
Two hundred eighty-two participants underwent evaluation, including 141 with head and neck tumors and 141 as an age-matched control group. The controls had never undergone oncological treatment that put their hearing at risk.
Main Outcome Measures:
Results of audiological evaluation, including the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly questionnaire and pure-tone, speech, and immittance audiometry, and radiation dose received by the auditory system (based on the percentage of the external auditory canal included in the radiation field).
Results:
We observed occurrences of hearing loss in 102 (72.3%) of the participants exposed to radiotherapy and 69 (48.9%) of the control group (P < .001). Hearing losses were mostly sensorineural and of mild degree, but those exposed to radiotherapy more frequently presented with severe and mixed-type hearing losses (P < .001). Of the participants exposed to radiotherapy, 19.1% had a severe handicap (P < .001).
Conclusion:
Patients undergoing radiotherapy in the head and neck region have a higher incidence of hearing loss and more severe hearing handicap. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01102621.