Hearing Assessment in Patients of Allergic Rhinitis: A Study on 200 Subjects

A systematic review of the clinical evidence for an association between type I hypersensitivity and inner ear disorders

“…They also found that AR patients had abnormal OAE in the frequencies between 1,481 and 8,000 Hz and identified prolonged wave I in ABR. Finally, in a sample of 100 AR patients and 100 controls, Sahni et al ( 58 ) found that 35% had abnormal OAE compared to only 7% of controls. Despite the differences in the sample composition (age ranges: Singh et al 17–45; Sahni et a.…”

“…The answer to our main question posed at the beginning of this work (“Is there a relationship between allergic diseases and inner ear disorders?”) is “yes.” All but two papers ( 49 , 57 ) found supportive evidence of a possible association between allergy and inner ear disorders. The backing evidence included an increased prevalence of allergic disorders (airborne or food allergies) in persons with MD, ISSHL, and ALHL ( 48 , 50–54 ) and an increased prevalence of inner ear disorders in AR patients ( 15 , 56 , 58 , 59 ) when compared to the control groups or general population. In Derebery’s study ( 48 ), 41.6% of 734 unselected patients with MD reported having airborne allergies, 17.6% having suspected airborne allergies, and 40.3% having suspected food allergies.…”

“…Five studies (15,(56)(57)(58)(59) focused on inner ear disorders in patients with allergies (Table 4). Three studies (56,58,59) showed that pure tone audiometry, otoacoustic emissions, and ABR were abnormal in patients with allergic rhinitis compared with healthy non-allergic controls, strongly suggesting inner ear pathology. One study (15) showed a high prevalence of various inner ear disorders in AR patients (see section 3.2).…”