Evalution of hearing in diabetes mellitus patients with and without diabetic retinopathy

Vascular structures affected by diabetic retinopathy which is one of the microvascular chronic complications of diabetes mellitus and developmental and anatomical similarities in the inner ear are similar. The aim of our study; was to evaluate the hearing of patients with non-retinopathy and to investigate their effects on auditory functions with proliferative diabetic retinopathy, non-proliferative diabetic ratinopathy. People aged 25-45 years diagnosed with diabetes mellitus included in the study. Thirty patients with PDR, 30 patients with NPDR, 30 patients with DM without diabetic retinopathy , and 30volunteers who has no hearing loss, totally 120 patients were evaluated. (As a result of eye examinition acoustic immitometry, pure tone Audiometry, speech Audiometry and high- frequency Audiometry were performed to all subjects. Amsterdam Inventory for Auditory Disability and Handicap (AIADH) was applied to all inviduals in order to assess the impairtment of hearing loss in their daily life. In the PDR, NPDR and DM groups, the frequency of hearing thresholds in all frequencies in the range of 125-16000 Hz was significantly higher than the control group (p <0.05). The hearing thresholds of DM group to 10000 Hz were significantly lower than the PDR and NPDR groups (p<0.05). There was a significant difference between all groups in terms of all subscales of AIADH (p <0.05). For all subunits of AIADH, auditory insufficiency was the least in the control group, followed by DM, NPDR and PDR group, respectively. In patients with PDR, NPDR, DM without retinopath, it was observes that DM caused hearing loss, DM caused with eye couplications increase hearing loss according to pure tone audiometry and high frequency audiometry results significant increase in auditıry insufficiency was found in all subunits of AIADH (distinction/identification of sounds, localization of sounds, speech intelligibility in noise, speech intelligibility in quiet, detection of sounds)