AUDIOLOGICAL AND IMPEDANCEMETRIC FINDINGS WITHIN THALASSEMIC PATIENTS

The objective of this study is to investigate hearing losses in thalas saemic patients. This study was conducted on 34 thalassaemic patients of which 27 of them had thalassaemia major and the remaining 7 had tha lassaemia intermedia. Six (11.11%) of the 54 ears with thalassaemia ma jor were found to have normal hearing. Thirty-two ears (59.26%) had co nductive hearing loss, 8 ears (14.81%) had mixed type of hearing loss. Moreover, in this group, there was no ear which had pure sensorineura l hearing loss. Of the majority of patients having thalassaemia major and thalassaemia intermedia, an air bone gap was found even though the re was no negative pressure in the middle ear. In these patients a hig h degree of static compliance and normal shaped, stiff amplitude, norm al pressure tympanograms were observed. Moreover, in most of these pat ients acoustic reflexes were not obtained. These findings are rather i nteresting since they show the pathological changes which may cause st iffness in the middle ear sound transmission system.