People with rheumatoid arthritis have a 40% increased risk of a sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) than people who do not have rheumatoid arthritis, according to a Korean study.

Men especially at risk

Men are especially at risk, the study found. Men with rheumatoid arthritis are nearly 2½ times (2.34) more like to get a sudden sensorineural hearing loss, than men who do not experience rheumatoid arthritis. If you are a woman, the risk only increases by around 24%. Many more women than men participated in the study.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen and painful joints.

In the study, sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) is defined as a sensorineural hearing loss of more than 30 dB across three consecutive frequencies in a pure-tone audiogram that occurs within a 72-hour period.

About the study

The study used a data collected from 2002 through 2013 for individuals aged 20 years or older in the Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS)-National Sample Cohort and consisted of more than 38,000 people of which 7,619 had rheumatoid arthritis.

The study, “Increased risk of sudden sensory neural hearing loss in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a longitudinal follow-up study using a national sample cohort”, was published in the Journal Clinical Rheumatology in 2018.

Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and Clinical Rheumatology