Hantavirus infection: a possible cause of delayed sensorineural hearing loss.

From the Department of Otolaryngology, University of British Columbia. Reprint requests: Neil S. Longridge, MD, 4th Floor, Willow Pavilion, Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Center, 805 West 12th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V5Z 1M9. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 1998;118:697-701. Copyright © 1998 by the American Academy of Otolaryngology– Head Neck Surgery Foundation, Inc. 0194-5998/98/$5.00 + 0 23/4/77253 Sensorineural hearing loss as a sequel of hantavirus infection has never been reported in the literature. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a severe and often lethal respiratory disease, is caused in North America by a virus transmitted by rodents, particularly the deer mouse, Peromyscus maniculatus.1-3 A previously unrecognized strain of hantavirus, now called Sin Nombre (“Virus without a name”) or “Four Corners Virus (FCV)” was first identified after a cluster of deaths amongst the Navajo Indians in the four corners region of the American Southwest in 1993.2,4-6 As of June 1995, the number of cases had grown to 110 in 23 states and 11 in Canada; 5 in British Columbia, and 6 in Alberta (Personal communication, Denise Worker, Federal Field Epidemiologist, B.C. Center for Disease Control, 1995), with about half the victims dying soon after contracting the disease.2 Interestingly, local American Indian oral history describes three cycles of similar episodes during the twentieth century when clusters of deaths occurred in association with identifiable ecologic markers.6,7 We present a case of severe bilateral sensorineural hearing loss in a patient who survived HPS.