Inner ear involvement in Behçet's disease.

Objective: To assess cochlear involvement and hearing loss in patients with Behçet's disease (BD).

Method: Forty-two patients with BD and 24 sex and age matched healthy subjects were included in the study. pure-tone audiometry including high frequencies (250-16000Hz) and DPOAE were performed to all participants. Results of the audiological evaluation were compared and correlation between the audiologic status and clinical manifestations of the BD were investigated.

Results: Bilateral sensorineural hearing loss was detected in 27 (64.3%) patients. Hearing thresholds were found to be higher in patients with BD at all of the frequencies except at 500Hz when compared to control group (p<0.05). The difference in the hearing levels tend to increase in high frequencies. Compared with control group, distortion products and SNR of the BD patients were lower in all of the tested frequencies (p<0.05) which indicates weaker outer hair cell motility. There was no correlation between the clinical manifestations and the audiological parameters.

Conclusion: Even having hearing levels within normal limits in speech frequencies, increased hearing thresholds in high frequencies and decreased signal-noise ratios (SNR) in distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) indicate a cochlear involvement in patients with BD.