Effects of Vancomycin on Hearing in Young Children

YANG Yang; ZHOU Yi; ZHANG Jie; LIU Bing; LIU Haihong; ZHANG Yamei; LIU Shilin; ZHANG Xiaoxu; CHEN Min

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-2922.2015.03.005

Abstract：Object To determine whether vancomycin affects hearing in children. Methods Twenty two children diagnosed with acute infection were treated with vancomycin at Beijing Children’s Hospital Infec-tious Disease Department from January 2014 to June 2014. Patients’hearing was tested using auditory brain-stem responses (ABR) before and after vancomycin treatment. Relations between treatment course, co-adminis-tered medications, liver and/or kidney functions and hearing results were analyzed using paired t test or rank-sum test, with P<0.05 representing statistical significance. Results In the 22 patients (aged from 2 months to 59 months with a median age of 28 months), ABR thresholds at 4 kHz, latencies of wave I, III and V and the I-V interpeak latency showed no statistically significant differences before and after vancomycin treat-ment, or when compared between those treated with (n=13) or without (n=9) additional co-administered medi-cations. Nor did hearing show statistically significant differences when compared between patients with (n=8) or without (n=14) co-existing abnormal liver and/or kidney functions. No significant difference in hearing was seen between patients treated for less than 10 days (n=12) and those treated beyond 10 days (n=10). Conclu-sion 1) The use of vancomycin has no damaging effects on hearing in young children over short term. 2) How-ever, potentially increased risks for hearing damage associated with co-administration of medications, pro-longed duration of treatment or abnormal live/kidney functions may need further studies.