Evaluation of serum SCUBE-1 levels before and after treatment in patients with sudden hearing loss

Sudden hearing loss; is a sensorineural hearing loss that occurs within three days or less, at least three consecutive frequencies, with an average of 30 dB or more. Its annual incidence is on average 5-20/100000, it is most common between the ages of 30-60. Although it is thought that various pathologies such as infections, vascular pathologies, hypoperfusion of the cochlea, which is highly sensitive to ischemia, autoimmunity and intracochlear membrane rupture are thought to be involved in its etiopathogenesis, 80-90% are idiopathic. Early diagnosis and treatment is very important. SCUBE-1 (Signal peptide-CUB-Epidermal growth factor-like domain-containing protein-1); in platelets and endothelial cells, hypoxia, ischemia, endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, vascular damage, inflammatory and thrombotic conditions associated with identified as a cell surface protein. It has been shown in many studies that SCUBE-1 can be evaluated as a platelet adhesion molecule and used as a biomarker in acute ischemic events. In our study, by considering the pathophysiology of sudden hearing loss, we aimed to investigate the relationship between sudden hearing loss and SCUBE-1, which hasn't yet been investigated in the literature. In this cross-sectional study conducted with 30 patients with sudden hearing loss and 30 healthy individuals, the demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants were determined. Blood samples were taken from the patient (before, after treatment) and control group, serum SCUBE-1 concentrations were measured. A statistical analysis of the data was performed to evaluate the relationship between sudden hearing loss and SCUBE-1. The serum SCUBE-1 values measured before the treatment of the patients were higher than the SCUBE-1 values of the control group; the post-treatment SCUBE-1 values of the patients were found to be lower than both the pre-treatment SCUBE-1 values of the patients and the SCUBE-1 values of the control group; but no statistically significant correlation was found. Our study is the first to investigate serum SCUBE-1 levels in sudden hearing loss patients and in the field of otology. Although we couldn't detect a statistically significant relationship between sudden hearing loss and serum SCUBE-1 levels, we think that our results will guide future studies. Keywords: Sudden hearing loss, SCUBE-1, Ischemia, Otology