Objective: The purpose of study was identify hearing loss in thalassemic patients with history of Desferrioxamine (DFO) therapy. This study was carried out in a cross-sectional descriptive survey on 195 thalassemic patients (3-30 years old) in Gazvin Thalassemia center and Tehran pediatrics&apos medical center.
Methods: The patients underwent routine otolaryngologic history and physical examination, along with standard pure-tone audiometry.
Results: Hearing loss was present in 43.1% of patients. 16% of patients had conductive hearing loss and 4.6% of patient had sensory neural hearing loss. 22.5% of thalassemic patients had high-frequency sensory neural hearing loss and more importantly, high-frequency hearing loss attributable to Desferrioxamine ototoxicity was present in 12% of patients. Furthermore, these evaluations showed that there is a significant relationship between hearing loss and DFO usage and hearing loss too. There is no significant relationship between hearing loss and ferritin level between hearing loss and age of DFO usage too.
Conclusion: Management of these patients requires proper dosing of Desferrioxamine, along with regular otolaryngolgic and audiometric follow-up in order to prevent the effect of ototoxicity of desferal.