Sudden deafness syndrome: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment

As a clinical phenomenon, this syndrome has been described by many authors. The lack of a clear etiologic cause of this sudden one-or two-sided deafness caused great discussions among the audiologists, who, however, did not lead to any results. The emergence of this syndrome is associated with cooling or overheating, emotional stress or significant physical effort, allergies, hidden forms of auditory nerve neuritis, vertebrogenic processes, but the true cause of this disease has not been established.

The pathogenesis of the syndrome of sudden deafness in all cases is associated with spasm of the artery, which supplies the blood with a cochlea. This spasm provokes paresis and the widening of the smallest veins of CnO, the rapidly growing gypsum of cochlear endolymphatic spaces, which leads to hypoxia, and then to the death of hair cells. In case of allergic genesis, there may be an extensive paresis of the vessels of the cochlea with a rapidly increasing transudation, a massive local hydrops and a sharp increase in intra-ulcer pressure. It is not excluded that the occurrence of this syndrome is facilitated by certain vascular anomalies in the inner ear, which, existing in a latent form, appear when new pathogenetic conditions arise.

Symptoms of sudden deafness syndrome. Deafness arises suddenly in the midst of complete health without any apparent cause, can be one-sided or two-sided, total or significant. In many cases, hearing impairment is accompanied by a strong ear noise in one or both ears or in the head without a clear localization, in rare cases there is a rapid dizziness that passes quickly, within a few minutes, which never recurs. Ear noise gradually subsides, but does not completely disappear. In most cases, the resulting hearing impairment is irreversible, but sometimes the hearing is suddenly restored completely or partially. Attacks of hearing loss can be repeated more than once, with each new attack the degree of hearing loss increases. Given the repeated attacks of deafness and the lack of evidence of the etiology of this syndrome, it can be assumed that it is a kind of "purely cochlear" form of the lesser-like syndrome caused only by the snail's hydrosepsis.

Treatment of sudden deafness syndrome should be carried out for a long time and includes the same measures as treatment for Meniere's disease, vertebrogenic labyrinthine disorders, in some cases - antiallergic activities. If this syndrome occurs, the patient should be carefully examined for possible detection of the focus of pathological reflexes. Great importance should be attached to the emotional rest of the patient, who is potentiated by sedatives and tranquilizers.