Use of Antimalarial Drugs in SLE not linked to Hearing Loss: Study

It was a cross‐sectional observational study of 84 individuals (43 SLE patients and 41 controls), with audiometry and tympanometry tests. Researchers extracted epidemiological, clinical, serological, and treatment profiles of SLE patients from the charts.

Key findings of the study were:

• Upon analysis, researchers have found that SLE patients had more sensorineural hearing loss than controls (23.2% vs 0).

• They also found that pure‐tone averages in SLE patients, using antimalarials and not using antimalarials were similar (8.75 vs 8.75).

• At 8,000 Hz, they noted antimalarial dug nonusers performed worse than users (10.00 vs 22.50).

• Tympanometry was normal in all participants.

• They noted similar SLE serological and clinical profiles in patients with and without hearing loss.

The authors concluded, "Our study showed that antimalarials are safe from the auditory point of view, and highlighted the high prevalence of hearing loss in SLE and the fact that no clinical or serological finding of the disease could help in its detection".

For further information:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lary.28873