A preliminary audiology study in children with early diabetes

LIU Wei; ZHANG Jie; LI Jing; LIU Haihong; WU Di; HAO Jinsheng; YANG Yang; ZHANG Yamei; LIU Shilin; GE Wentong; CHEN Min

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-2922.2015.03.003

Abstract：Objective This is a comprehensive audiology examination on children with diabetes aimed to determine if diabetes affected their hearings. Methods Data from 40 children with diabetes seen at Beijing Chil-dren’s Hospital from January to May in 2015 were collected, including clinical information and comprehen-sive audiology examination (e.g. ABR, ASSR, DPOAEs, pure tone audiometry and acoustic immittance). Mito-chondrial genes were also tested in a patient with family history of hearing loss. Results Of the 40 patients, 16 were male and 24 were female, aged from 0.4 to 17.8 years (median=10 years). The course of disease was 2–1642 days (median=30 days). HbA1c level at the time of audiology testing was 6.2-18.8%. Audiology re-sults were within normal limits in all patients except one child with reported hearing loss and family history of diabetes, whose genetic tests showed mitochondrial tRNA leu (uur) A3243G mutation in blood (mutation ra-tio=42.8%) and urine (mutation ratio=83.2%) and was diagnosed with mitochondrial diabetes. ABR wave V latency and I-V interpeak latency in children with normal HbA1C and urine trace albumin were different from those showing abnormal results (P<0.05). Conclusion Children with diabetes of less than 5 years appear to car-ry subclinical hearing change, that is related to blood glycemic control and probably represents early peripheral organ damage. Genetic testing is important in children with reported hearing loss and family history of diabetes to identify mitochondrial diabetes.