Use of Antimalarial Drugs in SLE not linked to Hearing Loss: Study
Antimalarial drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine) are widely used for the treatment of autoimmune conditions, mainly systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and more recently they have been used in COVID‐19 treatment. In a study published in the journal Otology‐Neurotology on June 30, 2020, researchers have reported a high prevalence of hearing loss among SLE patients, which was not associated with the use of antimalarial drugs.
Antimalarials do have side effects; the most known and feared is retinopathy, which causes irreversible loss of vision, but audiovestibular toxicity has also been reported. However, the study of the effects of antimalarials on hearing loss is difficult, because the underlying autoimmune condition may cause inner ear damage by itself, making it difficult to know which one is responsible for the ear damage. Therefore, researchers of the Mackenzie Evangelical School of Medicine–Parana, Brazil, conducted a study to investigate whether SLE causes hearing loss and if there are any serological or clinical aspects of this diseases associated with inner ear damage.
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