DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i08.001

Pages: 2950-2954

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a disease known since antiquity. Hearing impairment is one of the known complications of DM. The relationship between SNHL and DM has been studied since 1857, when Jordao [1] reported one case of hearing impairment associated with incipient diabetic coma. This study was done to evaluate the relation of SNHL with duration of DM, sexual preponderance of SNHL is DM and SNHL in familial DM. This study aims at knowing the prevalence of SNHL in DM and its relation to age, sex, and duration of DM. In this study a total of 140 patients presenting with diabetes mellitus during one year study period from January 2016 to December 2016 were studied. Hearing loss was assessed by pure tone audiometry this study was done in the department of otorhinolaryngology, Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences, Karnataka. Of the 140 cases, 58.27% of the patients were males. The male to female ratio was 1.41:1. The mean age of the study population was 39.85±9.25 years. Majority (75%) of the patients presented with duration of five years or less and the mean duration was 4.91±3.44 years. Family history of diabetes was present in 32.86% of the patients. The mean fasting and postprandial blood sugar levels were found to be 124.6±37.88mg/dl and 188.24±53.78mg/dl respectively. In this study the prevalence of SNHL was 40% with maximum number of patients (20%) having minimal hearing loss. SNHL in diabetes was significantly associated with advancing age, duration of diabetes and family history of diabetes but association of SNHL with sex of the patient was not statistically significant.