Abstract
Three hundred and eighty-four patients with acute low-tone sensorineural hearing loss (ALSH) who consulted my clinic from 1987 to 2001 are herein retrospectively investigated. The results are as follows. 1) In 1999, I reported that the number of ALSH patients had gradually increased from 1987 to 1996. This tendency continued from 1997 to 2001.2) The number of female patients continued to increase while, on the otherhand, the number of male patients showed no significant increase. 3) Of the 212 patients, 81.1% and 6.6% showed a complete and partial recovery of hearing, respectively. 4) Aetiologically, ALSH may be due to a dysfunction in either the autonomic nervous system or a hormone inbalance in the patients probably caused by some type of social anxiety. 5) Comparing the therapeutic effects of yoryzanol, isosorbide and steroids on ALSH, yoryzanol showed the best results. 6) The patients whose hearing level in high frequency regions decreased tended to show a poor recovery. 7) Recently, the recovery rate of ALSH is gradually declining. This is considered to be due to the increase in the number of patients whose hearing levels in high frequency regions decreased.
