RED BLOOD CELL DISTRIBUTION WIDTH: A RISK FACTOR FOR CHRONIC INFLAMMATION, INCREASED IN PATIENTS WITH PRESBYCUSIS
1Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Ankara, Turkey Objective: We aimed to investigate the relationship between presbycusis and red blood distribution width (RDW), a biochemical marker for chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.Methods: The patient group comprised those admitted to our clinic with the complaint of hearing loss, while the control group consisted of participants over 50 years of age with normal audiograms. Hemogram parameters and audiological configurations of the participants were recorded.
Results: A total of 218 participants were included in the study (89 males, 129 females; mean age 63.6 years; age range 50-87 years). The results of our study were: 1) RDW was higher in the presbycusis group than the control group. 2) We found that RDW had a weak positive correlation with all frequencies of hearing levels. Also, RDW was found to be the only parameter in the haematology panel that showed a significant correlation with all frequencies of the audiogram; 3) Moreover, we found that MCV and Hg values had a weak negative correlation with the low frequencies of hearing loss.
Conclusion: Our study supports the fact that RDW is higher in patients with presbycusis and may be a negative prognostic parameter for presbycusis.
Keywords : Presbycusis, age related hearing loss, red cell distribution width, chronic inflammation, hemogram