IS SNORING SOUND A CAUSE OF NOISE- INDUCED HEARING LOSS?
1Aksaray University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of ENT, Aksaray, Turkey2Giresun University, Prof Dr A İlhan Özdemir Education and Research Hospital, Department of ENT, Giresun, Turkey
3Giresun University, Faculty of Medicine, Department of ENT, Giresun, Turkey Purpose: The traumatic effects of intense snoring sound on the cochlea of snoring patient are still unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate whether snoring sound over 65 dB caused a perceivable hearing loss in snoring patients.
Method: We included 72 patients with a pre- diagnosis of sleep apnea. To investigate the effects of snoring sound, we constituted two groups by reference to the max snoring sound level: lower snoring sound group (≤65 dB) and higher snoring sound group (>65 dB). We compared audiology parameters and the ratios of presence of a pure- tone threshold shift over 20 dB at every single frequency of both ears between these groups.
Results: Compared with lower snoring sound group, the median thresholds at 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 Hz; pure- tone averages and speech recognition threshold values were significantly higher in the right ears of high snoring sound group (p<0.001, p=0.004) as were in the left ears (p<0.001, p=0.005). The ratios of presence of a pure- tone threshold over 20 dB at 4000 Hz and 8000 Hz were significantly higher in high snoring sound group both for right (p=0.002 for 4000 Hz, p=0.001 for 8000 Hz) and left ears (p=0.002 for 4000 Hz, p<0.001 for 8000 Hz).
Conclusion: Snoring sound over 65 dB might negatively affect hearing functions in patients with sleep apnea, causing a perceivable hearing loss (threshold increase over 20 dB) at 4000 Hz and 8000 Hz.
Keywords : Sleep apnea, snoring, noise, hearing loss, polysomnography, audiometry