Clinical efficacy of oral beraprost sodium (Prostaglandin I₂) therapy for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss

Abstract

We administered beraprost sodium, an oral drug of a stable analog of prostaglandin I₂ (PGI₂), to 34 cases with sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The results were then compared with 31 patients who did not receive PGI₂ therapy. We evaluated the outcome using the recovery rate and improved hearing criteria of the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Japan. No statistically significant difference was observed in the outcome between the patients treated with PGI₂ and those not treated with PGI₂. Five patients showed an elevated anticardiolipin antibody level in the serum. The complete cure rate was slightly higher than nomal in these 5 patients. We experienced a patient who showed an improvement in hearing disturbance by the adiministration of oral PGI₂ alone and another patient whose hearing was dependent on the dose of PGI₂.