Sensorineural Hearing Loss Caused by Quinine

Abstract

It is well known that quinine gives rise to reversible sensorineural hearing loss. But there was very few reports about it in Japan, because malaria is infrequent. We reported the clinical details of 3 cases with hearing loss caused by quinine. The drug has also therapeutic effect against arrhythmia. Three patients were suffered from arrhythmia that other drugs were not effective and treated by quinine. Their hearing threshold was shifted about 10-30dB in pure tone audiometry. They showed recruitment phenomenon in SISI test, Bekesy audiometry and Metz test. The hearing loss improved following discontinuation of the drug.