Ototoxicity associated with vinblastine

OBJECTIVE: To describe a patient with ototoxicity associated with vinblasti ne chemotherapy. CASE SUMMARY: A 29-year-old white man with recurrent Hodgkin's disease rece ived doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) chemothera py once every two weeks for 12 cycles. He reported tinnitus after each trea tment, with an onset of about six hours and a duration of seven to 10 days. This interfered with reading, watching television, and general concentrati on. Symptoms returned to baseline prior to the beginning of each subsequent cycle. Audiograms performed before and after several cycles showed mild se nsorineural hearing loss in the high-decibel range, but no loss of speech r ecognition. DISCUSSION: No reported cases of ototoxicity or tinnitus from ABVD were fou nd. All concomitant medications were eliminated as possible causes either d ue to lack of temporal association with the symptoms or no reports of ototo xicity in the literature. Vincristine, a more commonly used vinca alkaloid very similar to vinblastine, was noted to have caused several cases of sens orineural hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS: This case suggests that vinblastine may cause ototoxicity.