Prevalence of hearing loss in COVID-19 patients: post-discharge

Mr. Abhijith M1*, Dr. Prabhakar K2, Dr. S M Azeem Mohiyuddin3

1*Assistant Professor, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar.
Email: mabhijithspa@gmail.com
Orcid ID: 0000-0003-4459-312X
(Corresponding Author)
2Professor, Department of Medicine, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar.
Email: drprabhakar@yahoo.in
Orcid ID: 0009-0002-0550-2854
3Professor & Head, Department of Otolaryngology, Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, Kolar.
Email: azeem_hn@yahoo.co.in
Orcid ID: 0000-0002-0974-2057

Received: ; Revised: ; Accepted: ; Available Online:

ABSTRACT

COVID-19 is an acute respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus. The first human case of COVID-19 was officially reported in Wuhan city, China in December 2019 (Savtale et al., 2021). The clinical symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, dry cough, tiredness, nasal congestion, headache, conjunctivitis, sore throat, diarrhoea, and loss of taste/smell. (World Health Organization, 2020). Besides respiratory involvement, it has been established that COVID-19 can also affect the human body's other vital organs such as the Heart, Kidneys, and brain. The auditory system has also been implicated (Munro et al., 2020; Mustafa, 2020).

Several studies have shown that viral infections can lead to hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss is a common sequel of viral infections, however, a viral etiology has been proposed to cause mixed and conductive hearing loss as an inflammatory response to infection. Cytomegalovirus affects the inner ear (Organ of Corti) as well as the vestibular labyrinth, on more specific basis the sensory cells of the utricle and Saccule (Gabrielli et al., 2014).

Trott et al., 2022 in a review of COVID-19 syndrome, listed some of the authors who reported the prevalence rate of symptoms relating to audio-vestibular systems in their Covid-19 population. Hearing loss was reported in 5.2 – 6.4 % of people (Davis et al., 2021), and tinnitus varied widely across three studies 26% (Davis et al., 2021), 14.5% (Orrù et al., 2021), and 6.9% (Gold et al., 2021) and vertigo across two studies (Rass et al., 2021; Orrù et al., 2021) ranging from 6 to 13.3%.

Savtale et al., 2021 in their study of determining the prevalence of ENT symptoms in 180 COVID-19 patients 54.4% of them reported hearing loss which was sudden in onset among this 81.6% of them recovered after treatment and 66.66% reported tinnitus. They also stated that these symptoms can be taken as biomarkers which would help in the early diagnosis of Covid-19 patients.

Although certain studies show that there is a high risk for hearing loss after a pandemic, which is based on the complaints reported by the patients which are not yet clinically established through a detailed audiological evaluation. As COVID-19 is relatively a new phenomenon, but there are no studies based on the effect of COVID-19 on the hearing status of affected individuals, the complaints such as sudden hearing loss, tinnitus, and vertigo seen in patients without major symptoms have strengthened this possibility (Basoz et al., 2022). Considering the lack of published data on hearing loss manifestation in COVID-19-positive patients, Therefore the present study aims to obtain the prevalence of hearing loss in COVID-19 patients after discharge. Which would help in the early identification and early intervention of the problem.

Keywords: Not provided

How to cite this article: Abhijith M, Prabhakar K, Mohiyuddin SMA, Prevalence of hearing loss in COVID-19 patients: post-discharge. Int J Drug Deliv Technol. 2026;16(4s): 000-000; DOI: 10.25258/ijddt.16.4s.53