title: Effects of cigarette smoking on hearing recovery from noise-induced temporary hearing threshold shifts in mice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Cigarette smoking may potentiate noise-induced hearing loss.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Many epidemiological studies have shown that cigarette smoking is a major risk factor for noise-induced hearing loss.
  
  
  METHODS
  BALB/c mice were exposed to passive smoking for 2 h/d for 2 weeks before exposure to 110-dB sound pressure level white noise for 3 hours once. Hearing was assessed via the auditory brainstem response with tone-burst stimulation and distortion product otoacoustic emissions before and at 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, 21, and 28 days after noise exposure. Oxidative stress and hypoxia were assessed by immunostaining with 8-oxoG and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α, respectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Control mice unexposed to both smoking and noise and mice exposed to smoking only showed no shift in hearing threshold. In contrast, mice exposed to noise only or smoking plus noise showed abrupt increases in hearing threshold. In mice exposed to noise only, hearing threshold returned to prenoise levels after 2 weeks. However, in mice exposed to smoking plus noise, the loss of hearing was significantly higher, and hearing threshold did not return to the pre-exposure levels until 4 weeks later. Positive staining with 8-oxoG and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α were observed in the inner ear of the smoking-only and smoking-plus-noise group similar to noise-only mice, whereas no positive staining was observed in control group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that cigarette smoking may potentiate the harmful effects of noise on hearing and disturb the recovery mechanism in the cochlea.
authors: Department of Otolaryngology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 388-1 Pungnap-Dong Songpa-Gu, Seoul, 138-736, Korea.
authors: Joong Ho
authors: JH
authors: Ahn
authors: Hyun Seok
authors: HS
authors: Joo
authors: Jin Kyung
authors: JK
authors: Suh
authors: Harry
authors: H
authors: Kim
authors: Hong Seob
authors: HS
authors: So
authors: Jong Woo
authors: JW
authors: Chung
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D051379:Mice; D017084:Otoacoustic Emissions, Spontaneous / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D020127:Recovery of Function / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking