Bilateral Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss Following Head Trauma

Abstract

A two-year-old girl had an alleged trivial fall from a chair. There was no loss of consciousness or ear bleeding during the incident. After the incident, her parents noticed she was not responding to sound. She had normal hearing and speech development before the trauma. There was no history of otalgia or otorrhea. Additionally, the parents noticed that child had an unsteady gait upon walking, which lasted for one week. Upon examination, the patient looked comfortable. There was no feature of dysmorphism. Otoscopic examination appeared normal external auditory canals and intact tympanic membranes bilaterally. Brainstem evoked response test showed absent of wave V at 99 dBnHL bilaterally, suggestive of profound hearing loss at high frequencies. Similarly, there was no response at 117 dB across all frequencies in the auditory steady-state response test, which suggested bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Repeated hearing assessment four months post-trauma showed significant improvement in her hearing to moderate SNHL. Her hearing level improved to mild SNHL at eight months post-trauma. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of the temporal bone was performed as shown in Figure 1.

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