The Incidence of Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL) in COVID-19 Patients in Tertiary Care Referral Units

COVID-19 is a new pandemic infectious disease that emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. We aimed to evaluate the sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) prevalence after COVID-19 infection or even vaccination. This is a two-center retrospective, observational cross-sectional study performed at tertiary care referral Audiovestibular Medicine Units at the period between August 1, 2020, and October 31, 2021. All SSNHL patients diagnosed in a period of a month with COVID-19 or vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine were included in this study. Fifty-three cases with confirmed COVID-19 and one patient vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine 1 week before, who reported sudden sensory neural hearing loss, were included in this study. Forty-eight patients had unilateral hearing loss and 6 patients had bilateral hearing loss. Forty-nine patients had typical COVID-19 symptoms; one patient discovered them after complaining of anosmia and ageusia and one patient after COVID-19 vaccination; and three patients were complaining only from hearing loss and had a PCR test for nasopharyngeal swabs to prove infection. Different degrees of SSNHL ranged from mild to severe and most of the patients had severe hearing loss. With more patients, COVID-19 may be a potential factor in sudden sensorineural hearing loss. It should be kept in mind that SSNHL may be the only indicator used to identify COVID-19 cases.