A review and meta-analysis published in Multiple Sclerosis and Other Related Disorders examined studies from PubMed (Medline), Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase, from 1970 to July 2021 to find the prevalence of hearing loss among people with multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis, as an autoimmune disorder that can cause symptoms in the optic nerve, brainstem, and spinal cord, as well as the olfactory nerve, cranial bulb, and vestibulocochlear nerve. According to the study:
Hearing problem delays or misses responses and may affect MS patients’ life (Robinson and Rudge, 1975; Klugman and Ross, 2002); however, detecting hearing abnormalities in PwMS is challenging. Speech intelligibility tasks are the place where PwMS has trouble (Mackenzie and Green, 2009; Jenstad and Souza, 2005). The location of MS plaques causes various types of HL. i.e., Lesions in the caudal pontine region are associated with center-oriented performance, while lesions in the rostral region are related to side-oriented performance (Furst and Levine, 2015).
As the researchers state in the published study, “Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate HL in autoimmune diseases. The risk of HL is higher in autoimmune diseases, including , antiphospholipid (APL) syndrome, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), and Behçet disease,” as well as various neurological disorders.
The authors concluded that the prevalence of hearing loss with multiple sclerosis varies, depending on country as well as type of multiple sclerosis. They recommend a follow-up study with a larger population.
Orignal Paper: Mirmosayyeb O, Naderi M, Raeisi S, et al. Hearing loss among patients with multiple sclerosis (PwMS): A systematic review and meta-analysis. Multiple Sclerosis and Other Related Disorders. 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.msard.2022.103754.
Source: Multiple Sclerosis and Other Related Disorders.
