RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the long-term presence of a patulous Eustachian tube (PET) is associated with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective chart review. SETTING: Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS: Ears (nâ=â100) were classified into two groups based on duration of PET symptom(s), i.e., Short (≤3 mo; nâ=â47 ears) and Long (≥48 mo; nâ=â53 ears). Contralateral ears without PET (nâ=â28 ears) were classified as the Contralateral group. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We used ISO 7029 to calculate the hearing thresholds of an age- and sex-matched population at a given frequency. Hearing loss was defined as >25% of these calculated values. RESULTS: At 4âkHz, the Long PET group showed a higher prevalence of hearing loss (47%) at 4âkHz than did the Contralateral (21%) and Short PET (19%) groups (pâ=â0.0280 and 0.0043, respectively). Ears with breathing autophony or a sonotubometric low probe tone level showed a higher prevalence of hearing loss at 4âkHz than those without this symptom or with a high probe tone level (pâ=â0.0329 or 0.0103, respectively). At low frequencies, ≥89% of the ears in all groups showed mild hearing loss. CONCLUSION: Chronic PET was associated with SNHL at 4âkHz. PET patients showed low-frequency hearing loss regardless of disease duration. Further studies are needed to better understand the pathophysiology of SNHL in patients with PET.