Sudden sensorineural hearing loss may be a risk factor for future cerebrovascular events, Korean researchers suggested.

Patients who experienced this dysfunction of the inner ear were more likely to develop cardiocerebrovascular disease over an 11-year follow-up period (13.5 versus 7.5 cases per 1,000 person-years, adjusted HR 2.18, 95% CI 1.20 to 3.96), particularly strokes (12.0 versus 6.2 cases per 1,000 person-years, adjusted HR 2.02, 95% CI 1.16 to 3.51).

However, this group was not at greater risk for acute MI, Dong-Kyu Kim, MD, PhD, of Korea’s Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital, and colleagues reported in a study in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery.

“This finding suggests that sudden sensorineural hearing loss may be a risk factor for the development of cardiocerebrovascular disease; therefore, clinicians should consider patients with sudden sensorineural hearing loss to be at an increased risk of developing cardiocerebrovascular disease, and take specific precautions to reduce their risk of stroke,” they concluded.

“Although the exact mechanism of sudden sensorineural hearing loss development remains unclear, interruption of the vascular supply to the cochlea is thought to be a contributing factor,” they said. In addition, this kind of hearing loss shares several risk factors with cardiocerebrovascular disease, including smoking, alcohol consumption, and thromboembolic events.

For this retrospective study, Kim’s group utilized National Sample Cohort from the Korea National Health Insurance Service with data spanning 2002 through 2013. Hearing loss patients (n=154) were matched 1:4 to controls by propensity score.

The study population was half women, and half were between the ages of 45 and 64 years.

Although nationally representative, the database provided no information on other baseline health data, such as BMI, smoking, or alcohol consumption by the patients, leaving room for possible confounding. Nor was mortality data available.