Association between age-related hearing loss and stroke in an older population.
OBJECTIVE
Very few studies have investigated the association between hearing loss and stroke. A recent article in Stroke reported an increased incidence of stroke among patients with sudden hearing loss over a 5-year follow-up period. Our study aimed to explore this association among subjects with age-related hearing loss from a representative population. Further, we looked at the association between severity of hearing loss and risk of stroke in older persons, acknowledged as a limitation by the authors of the Stroke report.


METHODS
The Blue Mountains Hearing Study is a population-based survey of age-related hearing loss conducted during 1997 to 1999 and 2002 to 2004, among participants of the Blue Mountains Eye Study. Pure-tone air conduction hearing thresholds from 0.25 to 8.0 kHz were measured by audiologists. Hearing loss was defined as the pure-tone average of frequencies 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, and 4.0 kHz >25 dB HL in the better ear.


RESULTS
Persons with moderate to severe hearing loss had a significantly higher likelihood of reporting previous stroke (OR, 2.04; 95% CI, 1.20-3.49) after multivariable adjustment. However, moderate to severe hearing loss did not predict incident stroke after 5-year follow-up (OR, 1.14; 95% CI, 0.59-2.23).


CONCLUSIONS
We observed a strong cross-sectional association between stroke and moderate to severe hearing loss. However, age-related hearing loss did not increase risk of incident stroke in our cohort. Insufficient study power or differing underlying pathologies of sudden sensorineural hearing loss and typical age-related hearing loss may account for the discrepant findings between these studies.
Gopinath
Bamini
B
Department of Ophthalmology, Westmead Millennium Institute and Australian Health Policy Institute, Centre for Vision Research, University of Sydney, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, Australia.
Schneider
Julie
J
Rochtchina
Elena
E
Leeder
Stephen R
SR
Mitchell
Paul
P
D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006319:Hearing Loss, Sensorineural / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011304:Presbycusis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D020521:Stroke / Q000453:epidemiology*