Clinical Audiogram of The Week - Vol2No8

This case was presented in the recent edition (vol2no8) of otolaryngology newsletter:
A 23-year old female presented with progressive bilateral hearing impairment of . 3 months duration. She denied any previous head/ear trauma, otorrhoea exposure to loud noise, or preceding ingestion of known ototoxic drugs. There was negative family history of hearing impairment. Clinical examination including otoscopy was not remarkable. Her left ear pure tone audiogram is shown in this picture. You may want to View audiogram for both ears for clarity.

Diagnosis: Binaural mid-frequency sensorineural hearing loss. This type of audiogram has been reported in (1) some cases of hereditary hearing loss, (2) acoustic trauma, (3) idiopathic as well as vestibular schwanomas, as well as (4) in ethyl benzene-induced ototoxicity in rats. This particular case showed no obvious etiological predisposing factor, and there were no amplification gains on hearing aid trials.