Otolaryngology Coding Alert

High frequency hearing impairment outweighed low. 

The research study found that about 10 percent of the 13,967 participants sampled had at least moderate sleep apnea. Nineteen percent had high frequency hearing impairment, 1.5 percent had low frequency hearing impairment, and 8.4 percent had both high and low frequency hearing impairment. Researchers determined these figures after controlling for other causes of hearing loss and potentially confounding factors such as age and gender. Hearing impairment was higher among individuals of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent and among those with a higher body mass index, self-reported snoring, and/or sleep apnea. 

“We found that sleep apnea was independently associated with hearing impairment at both high and low frequencies after adjustment for other possible causes of hearing loss,” said lead author Amit Chopra, M.D., of Albany Medical Center in New York. 

During the study, high frequency hearing impairment was defined as having a mean hearing threshold of greater than 25 decibels in either ear at 2000, 3000, 4000, 6000 and 8000 Hz, and low frequency hearing impairment was defined as having a mean hearing threshold of greater than 25 decibels in either ear at 500 Hz and 1000 Hz. Sleep apnea was defined as an AHI (apnea-hypopnea index) of at least 15 events per hour. 

“The mechanisms underlying this relationship merit further exploration,” Chopra added. “Potential pathways linking sleep apnea and hearing impairment may include adverse effects of sleep apnea on vascular supply to the cochlea [part of the inner ear] via inflammation and vascular remodeling or noise trauma from snoring.”