Hearing Disturbance in Primary Glaucoma Patients.

Youn, Dong Ho; Chang, Bong Leen; Hahn, Young Soo

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Ophthalmological Society 1971;12(2):63-66.
Published online January 1, 2001.

Hearing Disturbance in Primary Glaucoma Patients.

Dong Ho Youn, Bong Leen Chang, Young Soo Hahn

Department of Ophthalmology, College of Medicine, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.

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Abstract

There were many instances in which glaucoma, esp. primary, combined with hearing disturbance. The etiology of these cases has not been known until now. We had 15 primary glaucoma patients for whom pure tone audiometry wa~ performed, and could find the hearing defect in high tone in 5 cases (1/3 among those patients). The audiometric curve was similar to that in the presbycusis, but severer in degree than that occured within the normal physiological aging process. The average age was 62.4 year in the group with the hearing defect, and 45.6 year in the group without the hearing defect. There were no relationship between the hearing defect and intraocular tension, visual field change, glaucomatous cupping, and duration of glaucoma. These results may support the opinion of the authors that the hearing disturbance in glaucomatous patients is related to the arterioscIerotic changes which aggrevate the presbycusis, and not related to glaucoma itself. On the otherhand, however, it is stilI impossible for us to rule out that the pleiotropic and multifactorial genetic factors may play as a common important role in the hearing disturbances and glaucoma. And further studies would be necessary for these problems.