Hearing impairment in leprosy patients on multidrug therapy

Aims and Objective: Present descriptive study was carried out for the assessment of hearing capability in patients suffering from leprosy. Material and Methods: After obtaining approval from Institutional ethical committee the present descriptive study was carried out on 60 subjects. All the patients were admitted at the Leprosy Rehabilitation Center Maharogi Sewa Samiti Anandvan Warora, and were on multidrug therapy described by World Health organization for an average period of 6 months. Group I consisted of 30 leprosy diagnosed patients who were taking multidrug therapy for an average period of 6 months. Group II control group consisted of age and sex matched 30 normal healthy volunteers. Patients suffering from acute or chronic ear discharge, presence of wax in External auditory canal, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, impaired renal function and patients having history of trauma were excluded from the study. All the subjects underwent Pure tone audiometry, Tuning Fork test to check the level of hearing loss and type of hearing loss and detailed clinical examination for cranial nerve function Egyptian Dermatology Online Journal Vol. 8 No 2: 2, December 2012 2 http://www.edoj.org.eg Results: Audiometry findings in leprosy patients showed that 75% of the ears in leprosy patients had sensory neural hearing impairment (45 ears), Out of these affected ears 31.66% had mild sensory neural hearing impairment (19 ears), 33.33% had moderate sensory neural hearing impairment (20 ears), 6.66% had moderate to severe hearing impairment (04ears), 3.33% had severe sensory neural hearing impairment (02ears) and 25% showed normal hearing. Conclusion: In the absence of any local or systemic disease or drugs likely to have side effects on the cochlea-vestibular function, leprosy affects the cochlea-vestibular system and cochlear effect is seen more often then effect of the vestibular system. Thus hearing loss which is seen in leprosy is of cochlear origin.