title: A case of acute bilateral retrocochlear hearing loss as an initial symptom of unilateral thalamic hemorrhage.
abstract: A speech discrimination test is a test using a list of 25 phonetically balanced monosyllables. It is often overlooked but significant enough for pure tone audiometry. Many physicians have performed pure tone audiometry but without a speech discrimination test. A 73-year-old woman visited our clinic complaining of sudden bilateral hearing loss. Pure tone audiometry showed only bilateral high frequency loss. However, speech discrimination had decreased markedly. We decided to follow-up after 1 week of Ginexin-F® (ginkgo leaf extract) and Nafril® (nafronyl oxalate). She felt a gait disturbance within 2 days. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed a left thalamic hemorrhage. After a 1 month hospitalization, the hematoma subsided, and speech discrimination recovered 3 months later. Acute hearing loss due to thalamic hemorrhage that recovered has never been reported. We report the first case of retrocochlear hearing loss that occurred with a thalamic hemorrhage in a patient who recovered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital, Daejin Medical Center, Seongnam, Korea.
authors.forename: Min-Joon
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital, Daejin Medical Center, Seongnam, Korea.
authors.forename: Sung-Won
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital, Daejin Medical Center, Seongnam, Korea.
authors.forename: Kang-Hyeon
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Bundang Jesaeng General Hospital, Daejin Medical Center, Seongnam, Korea.
authors.forename: Young-Jin
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Kim
keywords: Hearing loss; Retrocochlear disease; Speech discrimination tests; Thalamus