Supporting-cell vs. hair-cell survival in the human cochlea: Implications for regenerative therapies

Animal studies have shown that the supporting-cells surviving in the organ of Corti after cochlear insult can be transdifferentiated into hair cells as a treatment for sensorineural hearing loss. Clinical trials of small-molecule therapeutics have been undertaken, but little is known about how to predict the pattern and degree of supporting-cell survival based on audiogram, hearing loss etiology or any other metric obtainable pre-mortem. To address this, we systematically assessed supporting-cell and hair cell survival, as a function of cochlear location in 274 temporal bone cases from the archives at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and compared the histopathology with the audiograms and hearing-loss etiologies. Results showed that supporting-cell survival was always significantly greater in the apical half than the basal half of the cochlea, that inner pillars were more robust than outer pillars or Deiters’ cells, and that total replacement of all supporting cells with a flat epithelium was rare outside of the extreme basal 20% of the cochlea. Supporting cell survival in the basal half of the cochlea was better correlated with the slope of the audiogram than with the mean high-frequency threshold per se: i.e. survival was better with flatter audiograms than with steeply down-sloping audiograms. Cochlear regions with extensive hair cell loss and exceptional supporting cell survival were most common in cases with hearing loss due to ototoxic drugs. Such cases also tended to have less pathology in other functionally critical structures, i.e. spiral ganglion neurons and the stria vascularis.