A 45-year-old British man infected with a coronavirus has lost all his hearing. Doctors say this is the first such case in their practice. Unexpected hearing loss is sometimes observed as a complication of viral infection, but in the case of coronaviruses, such a phenomenon has not yet been described in medical practice.
At the same time, ENT specialists claim that hearing loss can be prevented with timely steroid use.
Physicians are advised to pay special attention to hearing problems in patients with coronavirus. The patient, who suffers from asthma, was brought to one of the London hospitals with symptoms of Covid-19 and was admitted to intensive care as she was having difficulty breathing. The analysis confirmed the diagnosis and the patient was placed on a ventilator. He was prescribed several medications and a blood transfusion, after which he began to recover and was weaned off the ventilator after 30 days.
However, one week after being discharged from the intensive care unit, the patient experienced ringing in his ears and then unexpectedly became deaf in his left ear. The examination showed that the hearing loss was most likely due to damage to the nerve or middle ear, or both, and not due to inflammation or obstruction of the ear canal. The only possible cause of such damage is what doctors call Covid-19.
After a course of steroid pills and injections, his hearing partially returned, but it never fully recovered. Experts believe that the virus could penetrate and infect certain types of lung cells thanks to receptors on their surface. The same receptors are also found on the surface of the cells that line the middle ear. Therefore, physicians are now advised to pay special attention to hearing problems in patients with coronaviruses and to refer them immediately to the appropriate specialists who can take measures to prevent long-term hearing loss in the event of sudden hearing loss.