Post-traumatic hearing loss
Post-traumatic hearing loss is a common functional disorder after trauma, and radiologists should be aware of the ossicular, labyrinthine, or brain lesions that may be responsible. After a trauma, the use of a systematic approach to exploring the main functional components of auditory pathways is essential. Conductive hearing loss is caused by the disruption of the conductive chain, which may be due to ossicular luxation or fracture.
Accompanying intracranial nerve injury, temporal fracture, and intracranial pathologies are considerably high in patients who develop HL following head trauma. The first examination requires a multidisciplinary approach to guide future disability applications 1).
Podoshin and Fradis report on the hearing loss of 395 patients who were hospitalized after brain concussion. The percentage of hearing loss and vestibular disturbances appearing after fracture of the temporal bone is higher than in cases with skull fractures without fracture of the temporal bone or with brain concussion alone. Conductive deafness caused by a head injury usually disappears in two months' time. If conductive deafness remains, the suspicion of dislocation of the bony ossicles arises and such patients must undergo an operation. As the cases where sensorineural deafness disappeared within six months after head injury was rare, the final evaluation of the hearing loss can be made one year after the head injury. In the majority of cases, vestibular disturbances and positional nystagmus disappear within six months after the head injury 2).