Objectives; There has been high incidence of acute acoustic trauma in military service due to exposure of explosive sound environment. However, little is known about its clinical course and treatment outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate...
Objectives; There has been high incidence of acute acoustic trauma in military service due to exposure of explosive sound environment. However, little is known about its clinical course and treatment outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognosis and clinical factors of patients with acute acoustic trauma caused by military training.
Methods; We analyzed the patients with acute acoustic trauma retrospectively who visited the Armed Forces Capital Hospital between 2011 and 2017. The clinical factors including the date of explosive sound exposure and treatment start, and pure tone audiometry results (250 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 8000Hz).
Results; Total 137 patients (mean age: 21.24 years) were enrolled and mean time interval between noise exposure and treatment start was 21.02 days. Sixty two patients had follow-up audiometry data within 3months. Among them, the patients whose time interval between noise exposure and treatment start was less than 2weeks had significantly improved hearing, otherwise the patients whose time interval more than 2weeks had no significant improvement of hearing.
Conclusions; In conclusion, this study support that early clinic visit after noise exposure is important positive prognostic factor for the improvement of hearing of the patients with acute acoustic trauma.