The Hearing Recovery After the Acute Acoustic Trauma

Abstract

This study presents 20 selected patients with acute acoustic trauma (AAT) who visited us during the disease course, and followed up for a certain period of time. The patients were tested pure-tone audiogram (at 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8kHz) after the acoustic accident. All patients were men, with ages varying between 18 and 48 years. The patients who recovered rapidly after AAT were followed until the hearing threshold was normalized. The patients with remaining hearing loss were followed up for months. The initial audiogram after AAT demonstrated that the most affected frequency was 4kHz, followed by 8kHz and 2kHz. The hearing recovery after the acoustic accident showed the complete recovery of hearing in 5 patients (5 ears), partial improvement after the first post-accidental audiogram, but not complete recovery in 10 patients (13 ears) and unchanged hearing in 5 patients (6 ears). And the hearing recovery was poor at 4kHz, followed by 8kHz and 2kHz. These findings suggest that the audiometric follow-up at 4kHz is useful to predict the prognosis of AAT.