Hearing Impairment in HIV / AIDS

University of Rochester

NIH - National Institute on Deafness & Communication Disorders

Principal Investigator: Amneris Luque, M.D.

The goal of this project is to characterize the nature and extent of hearing impairment in HIV/AIDS patients, including longitudinal changes with different treatment regimes, and possible sensory improvement with effective treatments.

Abstract

During the earlier years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, initial reports described sensorineural hearing loss in up to 50 percent of individuals with HIV/AIDS. During these years, patients commonly progressed to advanced stages of the disease, and frequently had neurological complications. However, smaller studies described abnormal pure tone audiometry and brainstem evoked responses as not consistently correlated with advanced stages of HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, these studies could not exclude the confounding effect of concurrent opportunistic infections. Understanding the prevalence of hearing impairment and its etiology in individuals infected with HIV is critical to applying the advances made in the prevention and treatment of hearing impairment to individuals who have both communication disorders and HIV/AIDS. Specific Aims:

I a. Assess the prevalence and types of hearing impairment in individuals infected with HIV-1 compared to uninfected controls.

I b. Define the effects of aging on auditory function in these groups.

II. Determine the influence of HIV-1 disease stage and virologic control on auditory impairment in HIV-1 infected individuals.

III. Determine the influence of antiretroviral medications on hearing function.