Investigation of high frequency audiometry results in Covid-19 patients

Corona Virus Disease-2019, COVID-19, which spreads easily among people and affects the whole world, is a viral respiratory disease that causes a pandemic. Various viral infections can cause loss of hearing sensitivity by damaging peripheral and central auditory pathways. Although there are many studies in the literature on COVID-19, there is a lack of research between COVID-19 and hearing. In our study, which we hypothesized based on these shortcomings, to observe high frequency audiometry results in individuals who had COVID19; It is aimed to examine the effects of covid 19 on the central auditory system, to determine the audiologically characteristic findings of individuals with this disease and to emphasize the importance of audiological follow-up of these individuals. The study included 21 (34.4%) people who did not have Covid-19, 28 people (45.9%) who had Covid-19 once, and 12 people (19.7%) who had it twice. Favipiravir was used in the treatment of 21 of those who had COVID-19, and only 2 were inpatients. Only 2 of the patients who had Covid-19 had no symptoms related to Covid-19. In terms of sound measurements, a statistically significant difference was found only in the left 11.2 kHz (dB) measurements (p=0.042) when the status of having or not had Covid-19 was compared. The mean left 11.2 kHz (dB) measurement (25.95±17.93) of people who did not have Covid-19 was found to be statistically significantly higher than the mean (16.75±15.59) of those who had Covid-19 at least once. While 49 of our patients did not had tinnitus complaints, 93.4 percent had type A tympanograms in the right ear, and 98.4 percent had type A tympanograms in the left ear. Reflex was observed in both of the right and left ears, and the pure tone average of the right ear was 11.64, and the pure tone average of the left ear was 11.61. In terms of sound measurements, a statistically significant difference was found only in the left 11.2 kHz (dB) measurements (p=0.042) when the status of having or not had Covid-19 was compared. The mean left 11.2 kHz (dB) measurement (25.95±17.93) of people who did not have Covid-19 was found to be statistically significantly higher than the mean (16.75±15.59) of those who had Covid-19 at least once. In terms of sound measurements, a statistically significant difference was found only in the right 14 kHz (dB) and left 12.5 kHz (dB) measurements (p=0.044 and p=0.030, respectively). The right 14 kHz (dB) measurement mean of the patients who used Favipiravir in the treatment of Covid-19 (40.95±20.83) was higher than the mean of the patients who did not use Favipiravir (27.16±20.9) and the left 12.5 kHz (dB) of the patients who used Favipiravir in the treatment of Covid-19 ) measurement mean (28.1±21) was found to be statistically significantly higher than the mean (15.26±13.99) of patients who did not use favipiravir. When the groups formed in terms of vaccination status were compared in terms of sound measurements, a statistically significant difference was found only in the left 9 kHz (dB) and left 10 kHz (dB) measurements (p=0.040 and p=0.046, respectively). In both measurement levels, the distributions of those who have only Biontech vaccine have statistically significantly lower mean rank than the other 3 groups, that is, they have a distribution in lower measurement values.