Vestibular ototoxicity in children: a retrospective study of 52 cases

We have carried out a study on 52 patients treated during childhood with potentially ototoxic drugs. The evaluation of vestibular function was carried out long after treatment. In most of the cases there was a parallelism between hearing and vestibular deficit. Manifest impairment of the vestibular function was demonstrated in 4 subjects, without remarkable hearing loss, who had previously been treated with streptomycin during childhood. Furthermore, in the case of 19 subjects, a considerable deambulation delay was noticed (in one case it revealed itself after the fourth year of life) which was attributable to a real injury to the vestibular structures. Finally, almost all examined subjects showed a dysfunction of equilibrium and a noticeable tendency to kinetopathy.