Risk versus Benefit: Who Assesses this in the Management of Patients on Ototoxic Drugs?

The current paper is an attempt at highlighting important strategic indicators, as well as important variables, that the audiology community needs to consider in order to play a more central role in pharmaco-vigilance as part of pharmaco-audiology. Pharmaco-vigilance is an important aspect of pharmacological treatment of disease. In developing countries, where burden of disease is high with resource constraints dictating healthcare priorities; it is important to deliberate on risk/benefit of medications prescribed to treat disease. In the form of a literature review, the author presents current arguments with regards to audiology practice. In audiology, pharmaco-vigilance in the form of ototoxicity monitoring is gaining momentum within the South African research and clinical communities. This ototoxicity monitoring is however non-systematic, non-comprehensive, and does not seem to have a strategic plan behind it. This is fundamentally due to lack of involvement of audiologists in the risk/benefit evaluation of medications during the drug development and monitoring process. The current paper agues for an expanded role of the Audiologist which will ensure collaborative engagement with all relevant stakeholders in order to ensure that both quantity and quality of life are considered during the drug development and monitoring process.