Sudden bilateral hearing loss after organophosphate inhalation

Abstract

Sudden bilateral hearing loss are seen rarely and the toxic substance exposure constitutes a small part of etiology. A Fifty-eight-year-oldwoman admitted to our clinic with sudden bilateral hearing loss shortly after chlorpyrifos-ethyl exposure. Otolaryngologic examination findings were normal. The patient had 40 dB sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) on the right ear and 48 dB SNHL on the left ear. Additional diagnostic tests were normal. The conventional treatment for sudden hearing loss was performed. On the second week following organophosphate (OP) exposure the patient's hearing loss almost completely resolved. OP's are heavily used in agriculture and should be taken into consideration as an etiologic factor in sudden hearing loss. Copyright (C) 2016 The Emergency Medicine Association of Turkey. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of the Owner. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).