Effect of Early Treatment of Acoustic Trauma Caused by a Gunshot

Abstract

No standard treatment has been established yet for acoustic trauma (AT). The most commonly used treatment is systemic steroid therapy, according to the treatment guideline for acute sensorineural hearing loss. Here in, we report eight cases of AT that received systemic steroid therapy within 24 hours after acoustic overexposure. The subjects included 19- to 22-year-old military school students with AT induced by gunshots during training sessions. Seven of the eight patients had hearing loss, and one patient had only tinnitus without hearing loss. After systemic steroid therapy initiated within 24 hours of the onset of AT, the hearing thresholds recoverd completely in six of the seven (86%) patients with hearing loss, and significantly in the remaining one (14%) patient. Our therapeutic success rate for AT in this study was markedly higher than previously reported success rates. Our results strongly suggest that early steroid treatment is important to obtain significant therapeutic effect in patients with AT, as previously reported in the field of basic research.