PubMedDate not supplied
Hearing investigations (speech, tuning fork, pure-tone threshold audiometry) were conducted in 35 patients (18 males and 17 females aged 30-55) with acute subarachnoidal hemorrhage (ASH) which was spontaneous in 16 and resultant from rupture of the arterial aneurysm in 19 patients. Angiography registered in them local (11 patients), regional (14 patients) and diffuse (10 patients) spasm of cerebral vessels. Speech and tuning fork testing proved no hearing loss. Pure-tone audiometry, on the contrary, revealed bilateral or symmetrical (in 91% and 71% of the examinees, respectively) hearing loss in the majority of the patients (95.5%). Low-frequency and medium-frequency tones were received at slightly higher thresholds (20-25 dB). These thresholds were virtually similar in all the patients irrespective of the spasm severity and site. High-frequency sounds, especially 8000 Hz, were received inadequately almost by all the test subjects, the hearing thresholds being related to vasospasm severity, spread and location. These were 17-31 dB, 35-52 dB, 35-60 dB, 42-70 dB in patients with compensated and local arterial spasm, subcompensated and regional spasm, decompensated and diffuse spasm, basilar artery spasm, respectively. Pure-tone threshold audiometry can provide the basis for evaluating the severity, spreading and location of arterial spasm in ASH in acute phase and is recommended for examination of the above patients.