Abstract

Background: Hearing loss in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is believed to be of multifactorial aetiology resulting from electrolytes imbalance, hypertension and diabetes.

Aim:  This study aimed to correlate hearing thresholds of CKD patients with multiple parameters such as serum levels of creatinine, urea, sodium, chloride, potassium and bicarbonate, and packed cell volume, hypertension,
diabetes and duration of CKD.

Methods: This was a prospective study of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Ethical approval and informed consent were obtained before enrolment. Patients were recruited using convenience sampling technique.
Using a health questionnaire, a brief ENT history was obtained and pure tone audiometry was carried out. Blood samples were collected prior to audiometric evaluation. Data collected was analysed using SPSS version 20.

Results: Sixty CKD patients were studied. The age range was 20-68 years with mean (SD) age of 43.2(13.4) years and 70.0% (42/60) were males. There was a positive correlation between hearing thresholds and systolic
blood pressure (r=0.2, p=0.04) and diastolic blood pressure (r=0.3, p<0.001). Similarly, there was statisticallysignificant correlation between hearing threshold and duration of CKD, packed cell volume, serum creatinine,
sodium and bicarbonate. However, there was no statistically significant correlation between hearing threshold and serum urea, chloride and potassium.

Conclusion: This study found that longer duration of CKD, elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure, elevated serum creatinine, low packed cell volume and low levels of serum sodium and bicarbonate are strong
factors affecting hearing thresholds in patients with CKD.

Keywords: Chronic kidney disease; Electrolytes; Hearing loss; Hypertension