Audiologic Evaluation of Patients with Head and Neck Cancers Treated with Cisplatin Based Chemotherapy: A...

Recently, the incidence of head and neck cancers are on the increase globally and particularly in our environment. In addition, concurrent platinum-based chemoradiotherapy has become widely used in the treatment of head and neck malignancies. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of cisplatin-based chemotherapy on hearing in patients with head and neck cancers at our University Teaching Hospital.

This was a hospital-based longitudinal case-control study that involved 54 participants attending the oncology treatment centre of the University Teaching Hospital Zaria. The study investigated the hearing threshold and degree of hearing loss pre and post cisplatin-based chemotherapy at intervals of 3 months and 6 months. The data obtained were analyzed using Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS)version 20.

Seventy-two participants were recruited into the study, but 54 (75%) participants met the inclusion criteria and were enrolled and as well as same age and sex match controls. Thirty-one31(57.4%) of the participants had a nasopharyngeal tumour, 14(25.9%) had Sinonasal tumour and 9(16.7%) had Laryngeal tumour. Among the study group, there were 39 males (72.2%) and 15 females (27.8%) with an M: F ratio of 2.6:1. The age of the participants ranged from 13-68 years. (Mean =40.3years. SD=13.6). Assessment of hearing in the better ear showed 22 (40.7%) of subjects and 6 (11.1%) of controls had hearing loss before the onset of the study. The majority of these patients had mild hearing loss either mixed or SNHL. In the study group, 32(29.6%) ears showed changes in hearing threshold after 3 months of cisplatin therapy while68(62.9%) ears showed changes at 6 months of therapy. The overall incidence of ototoxicity after 6 months of therapy was 62.9%.

This study found a significant number of head and neck cancers patients with hearing impairment pre-chemotherapy. Cisplatin treatment-based chemotherapy was associated with significant short term hearing impairment in patients with head and neck cancers.