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. 2022 Feb 1;22(1):140-146.
doi: 10.17305/bjbms.2021.5703.

Audiological and vestibular evaluations in vitiligo patients

Alessandra Manno  1 , Annalisa Pace  1 , Giannicola Iannella  1 , Valeria Rossetti  1 , Roberta Polimeni  1 , Alessandro Milani  1 , Salvatore Cocuzza  2 , Antonino Maniaci  1 , Giuseppe Magliulo  1
Affiliations

Audiological and vestibular evaluations in vitiligo patients

Alessandra Manno et al. Bosn J Basic Med Sci. .

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to investigate audiological abnormalities and potential vestibular injury in a sample of vitiligo subjects. Thirty-five patients with non-segmental vitiligo (NSV) were enrolled in the study. They underwent pure tonal audiometry (PTA), vestibular Fitzgerald-Hallpike caloric test, C-VEM, and O-VEMP testing. The χ2 test and multiple regression analysis were performed. At PTA, 69% of patients presented with bilateral hearing loss, 8% monaural hearing loss, and 23% normal values. Bilateral caloric stimulations were performed and demonstrated that 14% of patients had a monolateral and 9% had a bilateral pathological response. VEMPs analysis showed that 20% of patients had no O-VEMPs response and 3% had no C-VEMPs response. Comparison between the normal values of healthy subjects and NSV patients showed an alteration of VEMPs in 44%. Multiple regression showed no statistical differences. We propose a specific diagnostic protocol employing PTA, bithermal caloric tests, C-VEMP, and O-VEMP testing to evaluate audio-vestibular damage. Our data were concordant with the anatomic-physiological melanocytic distribution and their possible degeneration linked with NSV.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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