Relationship Between Lipid Profile and Sensorineural Hearing Loss: An Institution Based Study

Sensorineural hearing loss is the most frequent problem worldwide and is the most neglected condition. Thus, it is essential to understand the etiology and pathophysiology of SNHL. The main objective of the study is to find whether serum lipid parameters have any correlation with SNHL. 68 patients within the age group of 20-60 years with clinically diagnosed sensorineural hearing loss were included in this study. Informed written consent, otoscopy, pure tone audiometry were done on all patients. The subjects were subjected to Serum lipid profile. The mean age of subjects in this study was 53.25 ± 13.78 years and male to female ratio was found to be 1.125:1. The serum total cholesterol and serum triglyceride also showed significant relationship with the degree of hearing loss (p value < 0.001). With an increase in the serum LDL there was increase in the severity of hearing loss which was statistically significant (p value < 0.001) where as serum HDL level showed statistically insignificant and negative correlation with severity of hearing loss. Serum lipid profile can be used as important biomarker for assessing the severity of hearing loss. Subjects with deranged lipid parameters had higher degress of hearing impairement.