Vestibular Hypofunction in Patients with Presbycusis: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Vestibular Hypofunction (VH) and hearing loss can affect quality of life and lead to disability, especially in the elderly. Studies investigating presbycusis and vestibular function in the aging population have been conducted separately, but few have examined the combination of both conditions in older patients, with inconsistent results that may be due to small sample sizes or heterogeneity in the methods used to assess vestibular function. We aimed to characterize the occurrence of VH in patients with presbycusis using the video head impulse test (vHIT), which is a specific and reliable assessment tool for VH.

Graph-Based Electroencephalography Analysis in Tinnitus Therapy.

Tinnitus is the perception of sounds like ringing or buzzing in the ears without any external source, varying in intensity and potentially becoming chronic. This study aims to enhance the understanding and treatment of tinnitus by analyzing a dataset related to tinnitus therapy, focusing on electroencephalography (EEG) signals from patients undergoing treatment. The objectives of the study include applying various preprocessing techniques to ensure data quality, such as noise elimination and standardization of sampling rates, and extracting essential features from EEG signals, including power spectral density and statistical measures.

Targeted sequencing identifies novel variants involved in autosomal recessive hereditary hearing loss in Qatari families.

Hereditary hearing loss is characterized by a very high genetic heterogeneity. In the Qatari population the role of GJB2, the worldwide HHL major player, seems to be quite limited compared to Caucasian populations. In this study we analysed 18 Qatari families affected by non-syndromic hearing loss using a targeted sequencing approach that allowed us to analyse 81 genes simultaneously.

Interaction between diabetes mellitus and hypertension on risk of hearing loss in highly endogamous population.

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hearing loss and its association with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a highly endogamous population.

Design: This is a cross-sectional study.

Setting: The present study is carried out in Ear Nose Throat (ENT) and Endocrinology outpatient clinics of the Hamad General and Rumeilah Hospitals, Hamad Medical Corporation.

Increased rate of deleterious variants in long runs of homozygosity of an inbred population from Qatar.

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the fraction of putatively deleterious variants within genomic runs of homozygosity (ROH) regions in an inbred and selected cohort of Qatari individuals.

Methods: High-density SNP array analysis was performed in 36 individuals, and for 14 of them whole-exome sequencing (WES) was also carried out.

Results: In all individuals, regions characterized by a high (hotspot) or low (coldspot) degree of homozygosity in all the analysed individuals were mapped, and the most frequent hotspot regions were selected.

The p.Cys169Tyr variant of connexin 26 is not a polymorphism.

Mutations in the GJB2 gene, which encodes the gap junction protein connexin 26 (Cx26), are the primary cause of hereditary prelingual hearing impairment. Here, the p.Cys169Tyr missense mutation of Cx26 (Cx26C169Y), previously classified as a polymorphism, has been identified as causative of severe hearing loss in two Qatari families.

Consanguinity and hereditary hearing loss in Qatar.

Qatar is a sovereign state located on the Eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Persian Gulf. Its native population consists of 3 major subgroups: people of Arabian origin or Bedouins, those from an Eastern or Persian ancestry and individuals with African admixture. Historically, all types of consanguineous marriages have been and still are common in the Qatari population, particularly among first and double-first cousins.

Linkage study and exome sequencing identify a BDP1 mutation associated with hereditary hearing loss.

Nonsyndromic Hereditary Hearing Loss is a common disorder accounting for at least 60% of prelingual deafness. GJB2 gene mutations, GJB6 deletion, and the A1555G mitochondrial mutation play a major role worldwide in causing deafness, but there is a high degree of genetic heterogeneity and many genes involved in deafness have not yet been identified. Therefore, there remains a need to search for new causative mutations.

Low-level laser therapy in patients with complaints of tinnitus: a clinical study.

Objective. The objective of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of low-level laser therapy (LLLT) in treating patients who were suffering from long-term complaints of tinnitus with well-understood etiology and who were not responding to conventional therapy in Qatar. Design.

Results of intravenous steroid injection on reduction of postoperative edema in rhinoplasty.

Objective: To determine the efficacy of intravenous dexamethasone in reducing postrhinoplasty edema.

Design: A prospective, randomized clinical trial with placebo control.

Setting: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Al-Sabah and Zain Hospital, Kuwait.

Unusual malignant transformation of recurrent sebaceoma. A case report.

Sebaceoma is a benign tumor composed of incompletely differentiated sebaceous cells of varying degrees of maturity. Sebaceomas was never reported as a known premalignant lesion.This is a report of a sixteen year old boy who presented with a malignant transformation of a recurrent sebaceoma which was excised twice by Moh's surgery.

Evaluation of vestibular evoked myogenic potentials.

In previous studies, electromyographic potentials, recorded in response to auditory clicks, have been attributed to stimulation of the otolith (saccule) and have been termed vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs). In this study, we assessed the VEMPs in subjects with normal auditory brainstem evoked responses, with no history of vestibular symptoms or neck and other skeletal muscle abnormalities. To this effect, 32 subjects (64 ears), after ethics committee approval, were exposed to 75, 150, and 300 clicks at 100 dB, and the responses were averaged.