3.4 Management Results
Among the 10 patients in our study, 8 recorded detailed PTA results before and after drug treatment (see Figure 3), while 2 had either subjective report only or incomplete audiometric data available. The treatment outcome revealed that 2 (25%) of the 8 patients exhibited recovery of the average hearing of impaired frequency by more than 15 dB, and 6 (75%) patients showed no recovery. Figures 4 illustrated pure tone thresholds of the 8 patients who recorded detailed PTA results at diagnosis of SSNHL and after drug treatment. Overall, there was no obvious recovery before and after drug treatment. In addition, we also followed up the speech recognition score (SRS) of 4 patients after drug treatment, and 2 of them showed significant improvement in SRS compared with that before treatment: case 6 showed an increase in SRS from 68% to 100%, and case 7 showed a significant increase from 8% to 96%. For the final management of the 10 patients, 4 patients were referred to undergo surgical treatment after being diagnosed with AN, 1 patient accepted stereotactic radiation therapy, and the remaining 5 patients were taken “waiting and scan” strategy (observation and follow-up of MRI). Among the 4 patients with surgical treatment, 3 were performed with a translabyrinthine approach and 1 with a retrosigmoid approach, and the postoperative hearing of the affected ear of the 4 patients were all totally deafness (see Figure S1).