Sex Differences in a Cross Sectional Study of Age-related Hearing Loss in Korean.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to obtain sex- and age-specific reference level for hearing threshold of normal aging in Korean and to determine if the rate of change in pure-tone hearing thresholds differed by sex.


METHODS
Subjects were clients who visited the Health Promotion Center, Daegu Fatima Hospital, Daegu, Korea, from January 2004 to September 2005. Pure-tone audiometric measures were obtained from 3,470 subjects who also completed a hearing questionnaire. The slope of a linear regression was used to estimate the rate of change in pure-tone thresholds at 0.25 to 8 kHz for each ear in 214 men and 902 women without past history of otorrhea, usage of ototoxic drugs, head injury, job in noisy environment, and military service.


RESULTS
Hearing thresholds were elevated with age in all test frequencies. Significant sex differences were found in pure-tone thresholds at 4 and 8 kHz after adjusting for age using analysis of covariance. In those high frequencies, hearing was worse in men than in women. The average rate of change in threshold was 0.28 and 0.24 dB per year at 0.25 kHz, increasing gradually to 1.27 and 1.05 dB per year at 8 kHz for men and women, respectively. Men had significantly faster rates of threshold increase at 4 and 8 kHz than women.


CONCLUSIONS
These cross-sectional measures of hearing levels and rate of threshold increases at 4 and 8 kHz showed significant sex differences in Korean men and women with little evidence of noise-induced hearing loss.
Kim
Sunghee
S
Department of Otolaryngology, Daegu Fatima Hospital, Daegu, Korea.
Lim
Eun Jung
EJ
Kim
Hak Soo
HS
Park
Jun Ho
JH
Jarng
Soon Suck
SS
Lee
Sang Heun
SH