Evaluation of auditory function in young adult type 1 diabetes mellitus patients with and without peripheral neuropathy.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the auditory functions of young- adults who were diagnosed with Type 1 DM and peripheral neuropathy to determine the changes in auditory functions. The study group consist of 50 individuals aged between 19-45 years and divided into three groups. First group (PN+) contains 15 normal hearing threshold people who have both Type-1 DM and PN. Second group (PN-) of 15 people under this test who also hearing normally, have Type-1 DM but not PN. Third group of people are 20 person who hearing normally and healthy. All individuals were subjected to pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, immittancemetric evaluation, high frequency audiometry, otoacoustic emission (TEOAE, DPOAE), auditory brainstem response (ABR) and Short Form of SF-36 respectively. According to results of the investigations, high frequency audiometry hearing thresholds average of patient groups ("PN– "and "PN+") found to be higher than group of healthy people (p<0.05). For all frequencies passing ratio of DPOAE for PN- and PN+ groups found lower than healthy people group. In the case of TEOAE amplitude averages, no significant differences are found around groups (p>0,05). In TEOAE and DPOAE tests, SNR values in 2kHz frequency of both patients groups found to be low compared to healthy group (p<0,05). In ABR Test, Absolute latans (I-III-V), inerlatans (I-III, III-V, I-V) and V-I amplitude ratio averages are found to be not different from each other in all groups (p>0,05). Short form SF-36 test results shows that, PN+ group's scores are found to be low value in the cases of physical function, physical role difficulty, pain, general health, vitality, emotional role difficulties and mental health averages (p<0.005). As a summery: ABR result found to be not significantly affected although there is a diffrences in test results of high frequences hearing theresholds, and 2 kHz SNR ratio of TEOAE- DPOAE in patiens with and without PN. Around DM patients having PN did not cause a difference in auditory function, but affects patients the quality of life worse. Keywords: Hearing, peripheric neuropathy, type 1 diabetes mellitus, quality of life