Acute Profound Deafness — How much do we now know about the clinical condition ? —

Acute profound deafness is a broad term that is used to describe severe deafness that occurs acutely or suddenly. Of the diseases that are studied by the research team of the Ministry of Health and Welfare named after this term, sudden deafness, bilateral idiopathic sensorineural hearing loss, steroid-responsive sensorineural hearing loss, and mumps deafness without parotid swelling will be discussed in this article. Although the cause of sudden deafness is still unknown, the severity of deafness was graded, and the relationship with prognosis was examined. Also, as drug therapy, treatment response to six types of drugs, ATP, betamethasone, hydrocortisone, PGI2, PGE1, and amidotrizoic acid, were examined at multiple centers by the envelope method. A significant difference was not seen in treatment response among these drugs. Although acute low-tone hearing loss, a disease studied by the research team and whose diagnostic criteria are listed in this article, is not considered to be profound deafness, it has drawn attention in recent years because the acute onset makes it necessary to differentiate it from sudden deafness or Ménière’s disease.